"If she has only split a plank or two, we can patch her up," Vane remarked. "There are all the tools we'll want in the locker."

"Where will you get new planks?" Carroll inquired. "I don't think we have any spikes that would go through the frames."

"That is the trouble. I expect I'll have to make a trip across to Comox for them in a sea canoe. We're sure to come across a few Siwash somewhere in the neighborhood." Then he knit his brows. "I can't say that this expedition is beginning fortunately."

"There's no doubt on that point," Carroll agreed.

"Well, the sloop has to be patched up; and until I find that spruce I'm going on—anyway, as long as the provisions hold out. If we're not through with the business then, we'll come back again."

Carroll made no comment. It was not worth while to object, when Vane was obviously determined.



CHAPTER XVI

THE BUSH

It was a quiet evening, nearly a fortnight after the arrival of the sloop. Pale sunshine streamed into the cove, and little glittering ripples lapped lazily along the shingle. The placid surface of the inlet was streaked with faint blue lines where wandering airs came down from the heights above, and now and then an elfin sighing fell from the ragged summits of the firs. When it died away, the silence was broken only by the pounding of a heavy hammer and the crackle of a fire.

Carroll sat beside the latter, alternately holding a stout plank up to the blaze and dabbling its hot surface with a dripping mop. His face was scorched, and he coughed as the resinous-scented smoke drifted about his head and floated in heavy, blue wisps half-way up the giant trunks behind him. A big sea canoe lay drawn up not far away, and one of its copper-skinned Siwash owners lounged on the shingle, stolidly watching the white men. His comrade was then inside the sloop, holding a big stone against one of her frames, while Vane crouched outside, swinging a hammer. Her empty hull flung back the thud of the blows, which rang far across the trees.

Vane was bare-armed and stripped to shirt and trousers. He had arrived from Comox across the straits at dawn that morning. It was a long trip and they had had wild weather on the journey, but he had set to work with characteristic energy as soon as he landed. Now, though the sun was low, he was working harder than ever, with the flood tide, which would shortly compel him to desist, creeping up to his feet.

It is a difficult matter to fit a new plank into the rounded bilge of a boat, particularly when one is provided with inadequate appliances. One requires a good eye for curves, for the planks need much shaping. They must also be driven into position by force. Two or three stout shores were firmly wedged against the side of the boat, and these encumbered Vane in the free use of his arms. His face was darkly flushed and he panted heavily and now and then flung vitriolic instructions to the Siwash inside the craft. Carroll, watching him with quiet amusement, was on the whole content that the tide was rising, for his comrade had firmly declined to stop for dinner, and he was conscious of a sharpened appetite. It was comforting to reflect that Vane would be unable to get the plank into place before the evening meal, for if there had been any prospect of his doing so, he would certainly have postponed his dinner.

Presently he stopped a moment and turned to Carroll.

"If you were any use in an emergency, you'd be holding up for me, instead of that wooden image inside! He will back the stone against any frame except the one I'm nailing."

"The difficulty is that I can't be in two places at the same time," Carroll retorted good-naturedly. "Shall I leave this plank? You can't get it in to-night."

"I'm going to try," Vane answered grimly.

He turned around to direct the Siwash and then cautiously hammered in one of the wedges a little farther. Swinging back the hammer, he struck a heavy blow. The result was disastrous, for there was a crash and one of the shores shot backward, striking him on the knee. He jumped with a savage cry, and the next moment there was a sharp snapping, and the end of the plank sprang out. Then another shore gave way; and when the plank fell clattering at his feet, Vane whirled the hammer round his head and hurled it violently into the bush. This appeared to afford him some satisfaction, and he strode up the beach, with the blood dripping from the knuckles of one hand.

"That's the blamed Siwash's fault!" he muttered. "I couldn't get him to back up when I put the last spike in."

"Hadn't you better tell him to come out?" Carroll suggested.

"No!" thundered Vane. "If he hasn't sense enough to see that he isn't wanted, he can stay where he is all night! Are you going to get supper, or must I do that, too?"

Carroll merely smiled and set about preparing the meal, which the two Siwash partook of and afterward departed with some paper currency. Then Vane, walking down the beach, came back with the plank. Lighting his pipe, he pointed to one or two broken nails in it. The water was now rippling softly about the sloop, and the splash of canoe paddles came up out of the distance in rhythmic cadence.

"That's the cause of the trouble," he explained. "It cost me a week's journey to get the package of galvanized spikes—I could have managed to split a plank or two out of one of these firs. The storekeeper fellow assured me they were specially annealed for heading up. If I knew who the manufacturers were, I'd have pleasure in telling them what I think of them. If they set up to make spikes, they ought to make them, and empty every keg that won't stand the test out on to the scrap-heap."

Carroll smiled. The course his partner had indicated was the one he would have adopted. He was characterized by a somewhat grim idea of efficiency, and never spared his labor to attain it, though the latter fact now and then had its inconveniences for those who cooperated with him, as Carroll had discovered. The latter had no doubt that Vane would put the planks in, if he spent a month over the operation.

"I wouldn't have had this trouble if you'd been handier with tools," Vane went on. "I can't see why you never took the trouble to learn how to use them."

"My abilities aren't as varied as yours; and the thing strikes me as bad economy," Carroll replied. "Skill of the kind you mention is worth about three dollars a day."

"You were getting two dollars for shoveling in a mining ditch when I first met you."

"I was," Carroll assented good-humoredly. "I believe another month or two of it would have worn me out. It's considerably pleasanter and more profitable to act as your understudy; but a fairly proficient carpenter might have bungled the matter."

Vane looked embarrassed.

"Let it pass. I've a pernicious habit of expressing myself unfortunately. Anyhow, we'll start again on those planks the first thing to-morrow."

He stretched out his aching limbs beside the fire, and languidly watched the firs grow dimmer and the mists creep in ghostly trails down the steep hillside. Presently Carroll broke the silence.

"Wallace," he advised, "wouldn't it be wiser if you met that fellow Horsfield to some extent?"

"No," Vane answered decidedly. "I have no intention of giving way an inch. It would only encourage the man to press me on another point, if I did. I'm going to have trouble with him, and it seems to me that the sooner it comes the better. There's room for only one controlling influence in the Clermont Mine."

Carroll smoked in silence for a while. His comrade had successfully carried out most of the small projects he had undertaken in the bush, and though fortune had, perhaps, favored him, he had every reason to be satisfied with the result of his efforts as a prospector. He had afterward held his own in the city, mainly by simple unwavering determination. Carroll, however, realized that to guard against the wiles of a clever man like Horsfield, who was unhampered by any scruples, might prove a very different thing.

"In that case, it might be as well to stay in Vancouver as much as possible and keep your eye on him," he suggested.

"The same idea has struck me since we sailed. The trouble is that until I've decided about the pulp mill he'll have to go unwatched—for the same reason that prevented you from holding up for me and steaming the plank."

"If any unforeseen action of Horsfield's made it necessary, you could let this pulp project drop."

"You ought to understand why that's impossible. Drayton, Kitty and Hartley count on my exertions; the matter was put into my hands only on the condition that I did all that I could. They're poor people and I can't go back on them. If we can't locate the spruce, or it doesn't seem likely to pay for working up, there's nothing to prevent my abandoning the undertaking; but I'm not at liberty to do so just because it would be a convenience to myself. Hartley got my promise before he told me where to search."

Carroll changed the subject.

"It might have been better if you had made the directors' qualification higher. You would have been more sure of Horsfield then, because he would have been less likely to do anything that might depreciate the value of his stock."

"I had to get a few good names to make it easier for men of standing to join me. They wouldn't have been willing to subscribe for too many shares until they saw how the thing would go. Anyhow, so long as he's a director, Horsfield must hold a stipulated amount of stock. He's actually holding a good deal."

"The limit's rather a low one. Suppose he sold out down to it; he wouldn't mind having the value of the rest knocked down, if he could make more than the difference by some jobbery. Of course, we're only a small concern, and we'll have to raise more capital sooner or later. I've an idea that Horsfield might find his opportunity then."

"If he does, we must try to be ready for him," Vane replied. "I sat up most of last night with the spritsail sheet in my hand, and I'm going to sleep."

He strolled away to the tent they had pitched on the edge of the bush, but Carroll sat a while smoking beside the fire with a thoughtful face. He was suspicious of Horsfield and foresaw trouble; more particularly now that his comrade had undertaken a project which seemed likely to occupy a good deal of his attention. Hitherto, Vane had owed part of his success to his faculty of concentrating all his powers upon one object.

They rose at dawn the next morning, and by sunset had fitted the new planks. Two days later, they sailed northward, and eventually they found the rancherie Hartley mentioned. They had expected to hire a guide there, but the rickety wooden building was empty. Vane decided that its Siwash owners, who made long trips in search of fish and furs, had left it for a time, and he pushed on again.

He had now to face an unforeseen difficulty; there were a number of openings in that strip of coast, and Hartley's description was of no great service in deciding which was the right one. During the next day or two, they looked into several bights, and seeing no valleys opening out of them, went on again. One evening, however, they ran into an inlet with a forest-shrouded hollow at the head of it. Here they moored the sloop close in with a sheltered beach and after a night's rest got ready their packs for the march inland. Carroll regretted they had not hired the Indians with whom his comrade had crossed the straits.

"We would have traveled a good deal more comfortably if you had brought those Siwash along to pack for us," he observed.

"If you had been with them on the canoe trip, you might think differently," Vane answered with a laugh. "Besides, they're in the habit of going to Cornox and might put some enterprising lumber men on our trail."

"There's one thing I'm going to insist on," Carroll declared. "We'll leave enough provisions on board to last us until we get back to civilization, even if we have a head wind. I've made one or two journeys on short rations."

Vane agreed to this, and after rowing ashore and hiding the boat among the undergrowth, they proceeded to strap their packs about them. There is an art in this, for the weight must be carried where it will be felt and retard one's movements least. They had a light tent without poles—which could be cut when wanted—two blankets, an ax, and one or two cooking utensils, besides their provisions. A new-comer from the cities would probably not have carried his share for half a day, but in that rugged land mineral prospector and survey packer are accustomed to travel heavily burdened, and the men had followed both these vocations.

In front of them a deep trough opened up in the hills, but it was filled with giant forest, through which no track led, and only those who have traversed the dim recesses of the primeval bush can fully understand what this implies. The west winds swept through that gateway, reaping as they went, and here and there tremendous trees lay strewed athwart one another with their branches spread abroad in impenetrable tangles. Some had fallen amid the wreckage left by previous gales, which the forest had partly made good, and there was scarcely a rod of the way that was not obstructed by half-rotted trunks. Then there were thick bushes, and an undergrowth of willows where the soil was damp, with thorny brakes and matted fern in between. In places the growth was almost like a wall, and the men, skirting the inlet, were glad to scramble forward among the rough boulders and ragged driftwood at the water's edge for some minutes at a time, until it was necessary to leave the beach behind.

After the first few minutes there was no sign of the gleaming water. They had entered a region of dim green shade, where the moist air was heavy with resinous smells. The trunks rose about them in tremendous columns, thorns clutched their garments, and twigs and brittle branches snapped beneath their feet. The day was cool, but the sweat of tense effort dripped from them, and when they stopped for breath at the end of an hour, Vane estimated that they had gone a mile.

"I'll be content if we can keep this up," he said.

"It isn't likely," Carroll replied with a trace of dryness, glancing down at a big rent in his jacket.

A little farther on, they waded with difficulty through a large stream, and Carroll stopped and glanced round at a deep rift in a crag on one side of them.

"I don't know whether that could be considered a valley; but we may as well look at it."

They scrambled forward, and reaching gravelly soil where the trees were thinner, Vane surveyed the opening. It was very narrow and appeared to lose itself among the rocks. The size of the creek which flowed out of it was no guide, for those ranges are scored by running water.

"We won't waste time over that ravine," Vane concluded. "I noticed a wider one farther on. We'll see what it's like; though Hartley led me to understand that he came down a straight and gently sloping valley. The one we're in answers the description."

It was two hours before they reached the second opening, and then Vane, unstrapping his pack, clambered up the steep face of a crag. When he came back, his face was thoughtful. He sat down and lighted his pipe.

"This search seems likely to take us longer than I expected," he said. "To begin with, there are a number of inlets, all of them pretty much alike, along this part of the coast, but I needn't go into the reasons for supposing that this is the one Hartley visited. Taking it for granted that we're right, we're up against another difficulty. So far as I could make out from the top of that rock, there's a regular series of ravines running back into the hills."

"Hartley told you he came straight down to tidewater, didn't he?"

"That's not much of a guide. The slope of every fissure seems to run naturally from the inland watershed to this basin. Hartley was sick and it was raining all the time, and coming out of any of these ravines he'd only have to make a slight turn to reach the water. What's more, he could only tell me that he was heading roughly west. Allowing that there was no sun visible, that might have meant either northwest or southwest, which gives us the choice of searching the hollows on either side of the main valley. Now, it strikes me as most probable that he came right down the main valley itself; but we have to face the question as to whether we should push straight on, or search every opening that might be called a valley?"

"What's your idea?" Carroll rejoined.

"That we ought to go into the thing systematically, and look at every ravine we come to."

Carroll nodded agreement.

"I guess you're right."

They strapped their packs about them and struggled on again. Stopping half an hour for dinner, they plodded all the afternoon up a long hollow, which rose steadily in front of them. It was narrow, and in places the bottom of it was so choked with fallen trunks that they were forced for the sake of a clearer passage to take to the creek, where they alternately stumbled among big boulders and splashed through shallow pools. The water, which was mostly melted snow, was very cold.

The light was fading down in the deep rift when, winding round a spur through a tangle of clinging underbrush, they saw the timber thin off ahead. In a few minutes Vane stopped with an exclamation, and Carroll, overtaking him, loosened his pack. They stood upon the edge of the timber, but in front of them a mass of soil and stones ran up almost vertically to a great outcrop of rock high above.

"If Hartley had come down that, he'd have remembered it," Vane remarked grimly.

"It's obvious," Carroll agreed, sitting down with a sigh of weariness. "We'll try the next one to-morrow; I don't move another step to-night."

Vane laughed.

"I've no wish to urge you. There's hardly a joint in my body that doesn't ache." He flung down his pack and stretched himself with an air of relief. "That's what comes of civilization and soft living. It would be nice to sit still now while somebody brought me my supper."

As there was nobody to do so, he took up the ax and set about hewing chips off a fallen trunk while Carroll made a fire. Then he cut the tent poles and a few armfuls of twigs for a bed, and in half an hour the camp was pitched and a meal prepared. Darkness closed down on them while they ate, and they afterward lay a while, smoking and saying little, beside the sinking fire, while the red light flickered upon the massy trunks and fell away again. Then they crawled into the tent and wrapped their blankets round them.



CHAPTER XVII

VANE POSTPONES THE SEARCH

When Vane rose early the next morning, there was frost in the air. The firs glistened with delicate silver filigree, and thin spears of ice stretched out from behind the boulders in the stream. The smoke of the fire thickened the light haze that filled the hollow, and when breakfast was ready the men ate hastily, eager for the exertion that would put a little warmth into them.

"We've had it a good deal colder on other trips. I suppose I've been getting luxurious, for I seem to resent it now," observed Vane. "There's no doubt that winter's beginning earlier that I expected up here. As soon as you can strike the tent, we'll get a move on."

Carroll made no comment He had a vivid recollection of one or two of those other journeys, during which they had spent arduous days floundering through slushy snow and had slept in saturated blankets, and sometimes shelterless in bitter frost. Carroll had endured these things without complaint, though he had never attained to the cheerfulness his comrade usually displayed. He was willing to face hardship, when it promised to lead to a tangible result, but he failed to understand the curious satisfaction Vane assumed to feel in ascertaining exactly how much weariness and discomfort he could force his flesh to bear.

Vane, however, was not singular in this respect; there are men in the newer lands who, if they do not actually seek it, will seldom make an effort to avoid the strain of overtaxed muscles and exposure to wild and bitter weather. They have imbibed the pristine vigor of the wilderness, and conflict with the natural forces braces instead of daunting them. One recognizes them by their fixed and steady gaze, their direct and deliberate speech, and the proficiency that most display with ax and saw and rifle. But the effect of this Spartan training is not merely physical; the men who leave the bush and the ranges, as a rule, come to the forefront in commerce and industry. Endurance, swiftness of action and stubborn tenacity are apt to carry their possessor far anywhere.

Vane and his comrade needed these qualities during the following week. The valley grew more wild and rugged as they proceeded. In places, its bottom was filled with muskegs, cumbered with half-submerged, decaying trunks of fallen trees; and when they could not spring from one crumbling log to another they sank in slime and water to the knee. Then there were effluents of the main river to be waded through, and every now and then they were forced back by impenetrable thickets to the hillside, where they scrambled along a talus of frost-shattered rock. They entered transverse valleys, and after hours of exhausting labor abandoned the search of each in turn and plodded back to the one they had been following. Their boots and clothing suffered; their packs were rent upon their backs; and their provisions diminished rapidly.

At length, one lowering afternoon, they were brought to a standstill by the river which forked into two branches, one of which came foaming out of a cleft in the rocks. This would have mattered less, had it flowed across the level; but just there it had scored itself out a deep hollow, from which the roar of its turmoil rose in long reverberations. Carroll, aching all over, stood upon the brink and gazed ahead. He surmised from the steady ascent and the contours of the hills that the valley was dying out and that they should reach the head of it in another day's journey. The higher summits, however, were veiled in leaden mist, and there was a sting in the cold breeze that blew down the hollow and set the ragged firs to wailing. Then Carroll glanced dubiously at the dim, green water which swirled in deep eddies and boiled in white confusion among the fangs of rock sixty or seventy feet below. Not far away, the stream was wider and, he supposed, in consequence, shallower, though it ran furiously.

"It doesn't look encouraging, and we have no more food left than will take us back to the sloop if we're economical. Do you think it's worth while going on?"

"I haven't a doubt about it," Vane declared. "We ought to reach the head of the valley and get back here in two or three days."

Carroll fancied they could have walked the distance in a few hours on a graded road; but the roughness of the ground was not the chief difficulty.

"Three days will make a big hole in the provisions," he pointed out.

"Then we'll have to put up with short rations."

Carroll nodded in rueful acquiescence.

"If you're determined, we may as well get on."

He stepped cautiously over the edge of the descent, and went down a few yards with a run, while loosened soil and stones slipped away under him. Then he clutched a slender tree, and proceeded as far as the next on his hands and knees. After that it was necessary to swing himself over a ledge, and he alighted safely on one below, from which he could scramble down to the narrow strip of gravel between rock and water. He was standing, breathless, looking at the latter, when Vane joined him. The stones dipped sharply, and two or three large boulders, ringed about with froth, rose near the middle of the stream, which seemed to be running slacker on the other side of them.

There was nothing to show how deep it was, and Carroll did not relish the idea of being compelled to swim burdened with his pack. No trees grew immediately upon the brink of the chasm, and to chop a good-sized log and get it down to the water, in order to ferry themselves across on it, would cost more time than Vane was likely to spare for the purpose. Seeing no other way out of it, Carroll braced himself for an effort and sturdily plunged in.

Two steps took him up to the waist, and he had trouble in finding solid bottom at the next, for the gravel rolled and slipped away beneath his feet in the strong stream. The current dragged hard at his limbs, and he set his lips tight when it crept up to his ribs. Then he lost his footing, and was washed away, plunging and floundering, with now and then one toe resting momentarily upon the bottom. Sweeping rapidly down the stream he was hurled against the first of the boulders with a crash that almost drove the little remaining breath out of his body. He clung to it desperately, gasping hard; then, with a determined struggle, he contrived to reach the second stone, but the stream pressed him violently against this and he was unable to find any support for his feet. A moment later Vane was washed down toward him and, grabbing at the boulder, held on by it. They said nothing to each other, but they looked at the sliding water between them and the opposite bank. Carroll was getting dangerously cold, and he felt the power ebbing out of him. He realized that if he must swim across he would better do it at once.

Launching himself forward, he felt the flood lap his breast, but as his arms went in he struck something with his knee and found that he could stand on a submerged ledge. This carried him a yard or two, but the next moment he had stepped suddenly over the end of the ledge into deeper water. Floundering forward, he staggered up a strip of shelving shingle and lay there, breathless, waiting for Vane; then together they scrambled up the slope ahead. The work warmed them slightly, and they needed it; but as they strode on again, keeping to the foot of the hillside, where the timber was less dense, a cold rain drove into their faces. It grew steadily thicker; the straps began to gall their wet shoulders, and their saturated clothing clung heavily about their limbs. In spite of this, they struggled on until nightfall, when with difficulty they made a fire and, after a reduced supper, found a little humid warmth in their wet blankets.

The next day's work was much the same, only that they crossed no rivers. It rained harder, however, and when evening came Carroll, who had burst one boot, was limping badly. They made camp among the dripping firs which partly sheltered them from the bitter wind, and shortly after their meager supper Carroll fell asleep. Vane, to his annoyance, found that he could not follow his friend's example. He was overstrung, and the knowledge that the morrow would show whether the spruce he sought grew in that valley made him restless. The flap of the tent was flung back and resting on one elbow he looked out upon shadowy ranks of trunks, which rose out of the gloom and vanished again as the firelight grew and sank. He could smell the acrid smoke and could hear the splash of heavy drops upon the saturated soil, while the hoarse roar of the river came up in fitful cadence from the depths of the valley.

In place of being deadened by fatigue, his imagination seemed quickened and set free. It carried him back to the lonely heights and the rugged dales of his own land, and once more in vivid memory he roamed the upland heath with Evelyn. She had attracted him strongly when he was in her visible presence; but now he thought he understood her better than he had ever done then. He had, he felt, not grasped the inner meaning of much that she said. Words might convey but little in their literal sense and yet give to a sympathetic listener an insight into the depths of the speaker's nature, or hint at a thought too finely spun and delicate for formal expression.

The same thing applied to her physical personality. Contours, coloring, features, were things that could be defined and appraised; but there was besides, in Evelyn's case, an aura that only now and then could dimly be perceived by senses attuned to it. It enveloped her in a mystic light. Again he remembered how he had sought her with crude longing and cold appreciation. He had failed to comprehend her; the one creditable thing he had done was the renouncing of his claim. Then the half-formed idea grew plainer that she would understand and sympathize with what he was doing now. It was to keep faith with those who trusted him that he meant stubbornly to prosecute his search and, if the present journey failed, to come back again. That Evelyn would ever hear of his undertaking, appeared most improbable; but this did not matter. He knew now that it was the remembrance of her that had largely animated him to make the venture; and to go on in the face of all opposing difficulties was something he could do in her honor. Then by degrees his eyes grew heavy, and when he sank down in his wet blankets sleep came to him. Perhaps he had been fanciful—he was undoubtedly overstrung—but, through such dreams as he indulged in, passing glimpses of strange and splendid visions that transfigure the toil and clamor of a material world are now and then granted to wayfaring men.

At noon the next day they reached the head of the valley. It was still raining, and heavy mists obscured the summits of the hills, but above the lower slopes of rock glimmering snow ran up into the woolly vapor. There were firs, a few balsams and hemlocks, but no sign of a spruce.

"Now," Carroll commented dryly, "perhaps you'll be satisfied."

Vane smiled. He was no nearer to owning himself defeated than he had been when they first set out.

"We know there's no spruce in this valley—and that's something," he replied. "When we come back again we'll try the next one."

"It has cost us a good deal to make sure of the fact"

Vane's expression changed.

"We haven't ascertained the cost just yet. As a rule, you don't make up the bill until you're through with the undertaking; and it may be a longer one than either of us think. Well, we might as well turn upon our tracks."

Carroll recalled this speech afterward. Just then, however, he hitched his burden a little higher on his aching shoulders as he plodded after his comrade down the rain-swept hollow. They had good cause to remember the march to the inlet. It rained most of the while and their clothes were never dry; parts of them, indeed, flowed in tatters about their aching limbs, and before they had covered half the distance, their boots were dropping to pieces. What was more important, their provisions were rapidly running out, and they marched on a few handfuls of food, carefully apportioned, twice daily. At last they lay down hungry, with empty bags, one night, to sleep shelterless in the rain, for they had thrown their tent away. Carroll had some difficulty in getting on his feet the next morning.

"I believe I can hold out until sundown, though I'm far from sure of it," he said. "You'll have to leave me behind if we don't strike the inlet then."

"We'll strike it in the afternoon," Vane assured him.

They reslung their packs and set out wearily. Carroll, limping and stumbling along, was soon troubled by a distressful stitch in his side. He managed to keep pace with Vane, however, and some time after noon a twinkling gleam among the trees caught their eye. Then the shuffling pace grew faster, and they were breathless when at last they stopped and dropped their burdens beside the boat. It was only at the third or fourth attempt that they got her down to the water, and the veins were swollen high on Vane's flushed forehead when he sat down, panting heavily, on her gunwale.

"We ran her up quite easily, though we had the slope to face then," he remarked.

"You could scarcely expect to carry boats about without trouble after a march like the one we've made!"

They ran her in and pulled off to the sloop. When at last they sat down in the little saloon, Vane got a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

"I knew you looked a deadbeat," he laughed, "but I'd no idea I was quite so bad. Anyhow, we'll get the stove lighted and some dry things on. The next question is—what shall we have for supper?"

"That's easy. Everything that's most tempting, and the whole of it."

Shortly afterward they flung their boots and rent garments overboard and sat down to a feast. The plates were empty when they rose, and in another hour both of them were wrapped in heavy slumber.



CHAPTER XVIII

JESSY CONFERS A FAVOR

The next morning it was blowing fresh from the southeast, which was right ahead, and Vane's face was hard when he and Carroll got the boat on deck and set about tying down two reefs in the mainsail.

"Bad luck seems to follow us," he grumbled.

Carroll smiled.

"There's no doubt of that; but I suppose the fact won't have much effect on you."

"No," returned Vane decidedly, "We had our troubles in other ventures, and somehow we got over them—I don't see why we shouldn't do the same again. Now that we've seen the country, we ought to get some useful information out of Hartley—we'll know what to ask him."

"I shouldn't count too much on his help," Carroll answered with a thoughtful air.

They got sail upon the sloop and drove her out into a confused head sea, through which she labored with flooded decks, making very little to windward. When night came, a deluge killed the breeze, and the next day she lay rolling wildly in a heavy calm while light mist narrowed in the horizon and a persistent drizzle poured down upon the smoothly heaving sea. Then they had light variable winds, and their provisions were once more running out when they drew abreast of a little coaling port. Carroll suggested running in and going on to Victoria by train, but they had hardly decided to do so when the fickle breeze died away and the tide-stream bore them past to the south. They had no longer a stitch of dry clothing and they were again upon reduced rations.

Still bad fortune dogged them, for that night a fresh head wind sprang up and held steadily while they thrashed her south, swept by stinging spray. Their tempers grew shorter under the strain, and their bodies ached from the chill of their sodden garments and from sitting hour by hour at the helm. At last the breeze fell, and shortly afterward a trail of smoke and a half-seen strip of hull emerged from the creeping haze astern of them.

"A lumber tug," observed Vane. "She seems to have a raft in tow, and it will probably be for Drayton's people. If you'll edge in toward her I'll send him word that we're on the way."

There was very little wind just then and presently the tug was close alongside, pitching her bows out of the slow swell, while a great mass of timber wonderfully chained together surged along astern, the dim, slate-green sea washing over it. A shapeless oil-skinned figure stood outside her pilot-house, balancing itself against the heave of the bridge, which slanted and straightened.

"Winstanley?" Vane shouted.

The figure waved an arm, as if in assent, and Vane raised his voice again.

"Report us to Mr. Drayton. We'll come along as fast as we can."

The man turned and pointed to the misty horizon astern.

"You'll get it from the north before to-morrow!"' he called.

Then the straining tug and the long wet line of working raft drew ahead while the sloop crawled on, close-hauled toward the south. Late that night, however, the mist melted away, and a keen rushing breeze that came out of the north crisped the water. The vessel sprang forward when the ripples reached her; the flapping canvas went to sleep; and while each slack rope tightened a musical tinkle broke out at the bows. It grew steadily louder, and when the sun swung up red above the eastern hills, she had piled the white froth to her channels and was driving forward merrily with little sparkling seas tumbling, foam-tipped, after her. The wind fell light as the sun rose higher, but the swinging sloop ran on all day, with blurred hills and forests sliding past; and the western sky was still blazing with a wondrous green when she stole into Vancouver harbor.

Carroll gazed at the city with open appreciation. It rose, girded with many wires and giant telegraph poles, roof above roof, up a low rise, on the crest of which towering pines still lifted their ragged spires against the evening sky. Lower down, big white lights were beginning to blink, and the forests up the inlet beyond the smoke of the mills had already faded to a belt of shadow.

"Quebec," he remarked, "looks fine from the river, clustering round and perched upon its heights; and Montreal at the foot of its mountain strikes your eye from most points of view; but I can't remember ever entering either with the pleasure I've experienced in reaching this city."

"You probably arrived at the others traveling in a Pullman or in a luxurious side-wheel steamboat. It wouldn't be any great change from them to a smart hotel."

"That may explain the thing," Carroll agreed with an air of humorous reflection. "I guess the way you regard a city depends largely on the condition you're in when you reach it and on what you expect to get out of it. In the present case, Vancouver stands for rest and comfort and enough to eat."

Vane laughed.

"I'm as glad to be back as you are; but you'd better make the most of any leisure that you can get. As soon as I've arranged things here we'll go north again."

The light faded as they crept across the inlet before a faint breeze, but when they got the anchor over and the boat into the water, Carroll made out two dim figures standing on the wharf.

"It's Drayton, I think," he said, waving a hand to them. "Kitty's with him."

They pulled ashore, and Drayton and Kitty greeted them.

"I've been looking out for you since noon," Drayton told them. "What about the spruce?"

There was eagerness in his voice, and Vane's face clouded.

"We couldn't find a trace of it."

Drayton's disappointment was obvious, though he tried to hide it.

"Well," he said resignedly, "I've no doubt you did all you could."

"Of course!" Kitty broke in. "We're quite sure of that!"

Vane thanked her with a glance. He felt sorry for her and Drayton. They were strongly attached to each other, and he had reasons for believing that even with the advanced salary the man expected to get they would find it needful to study strict economy. It was easy to understand that a small share in a prosperous enterprise would have made things easier for them.

"I'm going to make another attempt. I expect some of our difficulties will vanish after I've had a talk with Hartley."

"That's impossible," Kitty explained softly. "Hartley died a week ago."

Vane started. The prospector had given him very little definite information, and it was disconcerting to recognize that he must now rely entirely upon his own devices.

"I'm sorry", he said "How's Celia?"

"She's very ill." There was concern in Kitty's voice. "Hartley got worse soon after you left, and she sat up all night with him, after her work for the last few weeks. Now she's broken down, and she seems to worry for fear they will not take her back again at the hotel."

"I must go to see her," declared Vane. "But won't you and Drayton come with us and have dinner?"

Drayton explained that this was out of the question; Kitty's employer, who had driven in that afternoon, was waiting with his team. They left the wharf together, and a few minutes later Vane shook hands with the girl and her companion.

"Don't lose heart," he said encouragingly. "We're far from beaten yet."

Some time afterward Vane, rejoicing in the unusual luxury of clean, dry clothes, walked across to call on Nairn. The house struck him as larger, more commodious and better lighted than it had been when he left it, although he supposed that was only the result of his having lived on board the sloop and in the bush. He was shown into a room where Jessy Horsfield was sitting, and she rose with a slight start when he came in; but her manner was reposeful and quietly friendly when she held out her hand.

"So you have come back! Have you succeeded in your search?"

Vane was gratified. It was pleasant to feel that she was interested in his undertaking.

"No," he confessed. "For the time being, I'm afraid I have failed."

There was reproach in Jessy's voice when she answered.

"Then you have disappointed me!"

It was delicate flattery, as she had conveyed the impression that she had expected him to succeed, which implied that she held a high opinion of his abilities. Still, she did not mean him to think that he had forfeited the latter.

"After all, you must have had a good deal against you," she added consolingly. "Won't you sit down and tell me about it? Mr. Nairn, I understand, is writing some letters, and he sent for Mrs. Nairn just before you came in. I don't suppose she will be back for a few minutes."

She indicated a chair beside the open hearth and Vane sat down opposite her, where a low screen cut them off from the rest of the room. A shaded lamp above their heads cast down a soft radiance which lighted a sparkle in the girl's hair, and a red, wood fire glowed cheerfully in front of them. Vane, still stiff and aching from exposure to the cold and rain, reveled in the unusual sense of comfort. In addition to this, his companion's pose was singularly graceful, and the ease of it and the friendly smile with which she regarded him somehow implied that they were on excellent terms.

"It's very nice to be here again," he said languidly.

Jessy looked up at him. He had, as she recognized, spoken as he felt, on impulse, and this was more gratifying than an obvious desire to pay her a compliment would have been.

"I suppose you didn't get many comforts in the bush," she suggested.

"No. Comforts of any kind are remarkably scarce up yonder. As a matter of fact, I can't imagine a country where the contrasts between the luxuries of civilization and—the other thing—are sharper. You can step off a first-class car into the wilderness, where no amount of money can buy you better fare than pork, potatoes and dried apples; and if you want to travel you must shoulder your pack and walk. But that wasn't exactly what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I don't know that it's worth explaining. We have rather luxurious quarters at the hotel, but this room is somehow different. It's restful—I think it's homely—in fact, as I said, it's nice to be here."

Jessy made no comment. She understood that he had been attempting to analyze his feelings, and had failed clearly to recognize that her presence contributed to the satisfaction of which he was conscious. She had no doubt that if he were a man of average susceptibility, which seemed to be the case, the company of a well-dressed and attractive woman would have some effect on him after his sojourn in the wilds; but whether she had produced any deeper effect than that or not she could not determine. Though she was curious upon the point, it did not appear judicious to prompt him unduly.

"But won't you tell me your adventures?" she begged.

It required a few leading questions to start him but at length he told the story in a manner that compelled her interest.

"You see," he concluded, "it was the lack of definite knowledge as much as the natural obstacles that brought us back—and I've been troubled about the thing since we landed."

Jessy's manner invited his confidence.

"I wonder," she said softly, "if you would care to tell me why?"

Vane knit his brows.

"Hartley's dead, and I understand that his daughter has broken down after nursing him. It's doubtful whether her situation can be kept open, and it may be some time before she's strong enough to look for another." He hesitated. "In a way, I feel responsible for her."

"You really aren't responsible in the least," Jessy declared. "Still, I can understand the idea's troubling you."

"She's left without a cent and unable to work—and I don't know what to do. In an affair of this kind I'm handicapped by being a man."

"Would you like me to help you?"

"I can hardly ask it, but it would be a relief to me," Vane answered with obvious eagerness.

"Then if you'll tell me her address, I'll go to see her, and we'll consider what can be done."

Vane leaned forward impulsively.

"You have taken a weight off my mind. It's difficult to thank you properly."

"Oh, I don't suppose it will give me any trouble. Of course, it must be embarrassing to you to feel that you have a helpless young woman on your hands."

Then a thought flashed into her mind, as she remembered what she had seen at the station some months ago.

"I wonder whether the situation is an altogether unusual one to you?" she queried. "Have you never let your pity run away with your judgment before?"

"You wouldn't expect me to proclaim my charities," Vane parried with a laugh.

"I think you are trying to put me off. You haven't given me an answer."

"Well, perhaps I was able to make things easier for somebody else not very long ago," Vane confessed reluctantly but without embarrassment. "I now see that I might have done harm without meaning to do so. It's sometimes extraordinarily difficult to help people—and that makes me especially grateful for your offer."

For the next few moments Jessy sat silent. It was clear that she had misjudged him, for although she was not one who demanded too much from human nature, the fact that Kitty Blake had arrived in Vancouver in his company had undoubtedly rankled in her mind. Now she acquitted him of any blame, and it was a relief to do so. She changed the subject abruptly.

"I suppose you will make another attempt to find the timber?"

"Yes. In a week or two."

He had hardly spoken when Mrs. Nairn came in and welcomed him with her usual friendliness.

"I'm glad to see ye, though ye're looking thin," she said. "What's the way ye did not come straight to us, instead of going to the hotel. Ye would have got as good a supper as they would give ye there."

"I haven't a doubt of it," Vane declared. "On the other hand, I hardly think that even one of your suppers would quite have put right the defect in my appearance you mentioned. You see, the cause of it has been at work for some time."

Mrs. Nairn regarded him with half-amused compassion.

"If ye'll come over every evening, we'll soon cure that. I would have been down sooner if Alic had not kept me. He's writing letters, and there was a matter or two he wanted to ask my opinion on."

"I think that was very wise of him," Vane commented.

His hostess smiled.

"For one thing, we had a letter from Evelyn Chisholm this afternoon. She'll be out to spend some time with us in about a month."

"Evelyn's coming here?" Vane exclaimed, with a sudden stirring of his heart.

"Why should she no? I told ye some time ago that we partly expected her. Ye were no astonished then."

She appeared to expect an explanation of the change in his attitude, and as he volunteered none she drew him a few paces aside.

"If I'm no betraying a confidence, Evelyn writes—I'm no sure of the exact words—that she'll be glad to get away a while. Now, I've been wondering why she should be anxious to leave home?"

She looked at him fixedly, and, to his annoyance, he felt his face grow hot. Mrs. Nairn had quick perceptions, and now and then she was painfully direct.

"It struck me that Evelyn was not very comfortable there," he replied. "She seemed out of harmony with her people—she didn't belong. The same thing," he went on lamely, "applies to Mopsy."

Mrs. Nairn glanced at him with a twinkle in her eyes.

"It's no unlikely. The reason may serve—for the want of a better." Then she changed her tone. "Ye'll away up to Alic; he told me to send ye."

Vane went out of the room, but he left Jessy in a thoughtful mood. She had seen his start at the mention of Evelyn, and it struck her as significant, for she had heard that he had spent some time with the Chisholms. On the other hand, there was the obvious fact that he had been astonished to hear that Evelyn was coming out, which implied that their acquaintance had not progressed far enough to warrant the girl's informing him. Besides, Evelyn would not arrive for a month; and Jessy reflected that she would probably see a good deal of Vane in the meanwhile. She now felt glad that she had promised to look after Celia Hartley, for that, no doubt, would necessitate her consulting with him every now and then. She endeavored to dismiss the matter from her mind, however, and exerted herself to interest Mrs. Nairn in a description of a function she had lately attended.



CHAPTER XIX

VANE FORESEES TROUBLE

Nairn was sitting at a writing-table when Vane entered his room, and after a few questions about his journey he handed the younger man one of the papers that lay in front of him.

"It's a report from the mine. Ye can read and think it over while I finish this letter."

Vane carefully studied the document, and then waited until Nairn laid down his pen.

"It only brings us back to our last conversation on the subject," he said when his host glanced at him inquiringly. "We have the choice of going on as we are doing, or extending our operations by an increase of capital. In the latter case, our total earnings might be larger, but I hardly believe there would be as good a return on the money actually sunk. Taking it all round, I don't know what to think. Of course, if it appeared that there was a moral certainty of making a satisfactory profit on the new stock, I should consent."

Nairn chuckled.

"A moral certainty is no a very common thing in mining."

"Horsfield's in favor of the scheme. How far would you trust that man?"

"About as far as I could fling a bull by the tail. The same thing applies to both of them."

"He has some influence. No doubt he'd find supporters."

Nairn saw that the meaning of his last remark, which implied that he had no more confidence in Jessy than he had in her brother, had not been grasped by his companion, but he did not consider it judicious to make it plainer. Instead, he gave Vane another piece of information.

"He and Winter work into each other's hands."

"But Winter has no interest in the Clermont!"

Nairn smiled sourly.

"He holds no shares in the mine; but there's no much in the shape of mineral developments yon man has no an interest in. Since ye do no seem inclined to yield Horsfield a point or two, it might pay ye to watch the pair of them."

Vane was aware that Winter was a person of some importance in financial circles, and he sat thoughtfully silent for a couple of minutes.

"Now," he explained at length, "every dollar we have in the Clermont is usefully employed and earning a satisfactory profit. Of course, if we put the concern on the market, we might get more than it is worth from investors; but that doesn't greatly appeal to me."

"It's unnecessary to point out that a director's interest is no invariably the same as that of his shareholders," Nairn rejoined.

"It's an unfortunate fact. Yet I'd be no better off if I got only the same actual return on a larger amount of what would be watered stock."

"There's sense in that. I'm no urging the scheme—there are other points against it."

"Well, I'll go up and look round the mine, and then we'll have another talk about the matter."

Vane walked back to his hotel in a thoughtful frame of mind. Finding Carroll in the smoking-room, he related his conversation with Nairn.

"I'm a little troubled about the situation," he confessed. "The Clermont finances are now on a sound basis, but it might after all prove advantageous to raise further capital; although in such a case we would, perhaps, lie open to attack. Nairn's inclined to be cryptic in his remarks; but he seems to hint that it would be advisable to make Horsfield some concession—in other words, to buy him off."

"Which is a course you have objections to?"

"Very decided ones."

"In a general way, Nairn's advice strikes me as quite sensible. Wherever mining and other schemes are floated, there are men who make a good living out of the operations. They're trained to the business; they've control of the money; and when a new thing's put on the market, they consider they've the first claim on the pickings. As a rule, that notion seems to be justified."

"You needn't elaborate the point," Vane broke in impatiently.

"You made your appearance in this city as a poor and unknown man with a mine to sell," Carroll went on. "Disregarding tactful hints, you laid down your terms and stuck to them. Launching your venture without considering their views, you did the gentlemen I've mentioned out of their accustomed toll, and I've no doubt that some of them were indignant. It's a thing you couldn't expect them to sanction. Now, however, one who probably has others behind him is making overtures to you. You ought to consider it a compliment; a recognition of ability. The question is—do you mean to slight these advances and go on as you have begun?"

"That's my present intention," Vane answered.

"Then you needn't be astonished if you find yourself up against a determined opposition."

"I think my friends will stand by me."

Vane looked at him steadily, and Carroll laughed.

"Thanks. I've merely been pointing out what you may expect, and hinting at the most judicious course—though the latter's rather against my natural inclinations. I'd better add that I've never been particularly prudent, and the opposite policy appeals to me. If we're forced to clear for action, we'll nail the flag to the mast."

It was spoken lightly, because the man was serious, but Vane knew that he had an ally who would support him with unflinching staunchness.

"I'm far from sure that it will be needful," he replied.

They talked about other matters until they strolled off to their rooms. The next week Vane was kept occupied in the city; and then once more they sailed for the North. They pushed inland until they were stopped by snow among the ranges, without finding the spruce. The journey proved as toilsome as the previous one, and both men were worn out when they reached the coast. Vane was determined on making a third attempt, but he decided to visit the mine before proceeding to Vancouver. They had heavy rain during the voyage down the straits, and when, on the day after reaching port, the jaded horses they had hired plodded up the sloppy trail to the mine a pitiless deluge poured down on them. The light was growing dim among the dripping firs, and a deep-toned roar came throbbing across their shadowy ranks. Vane turned and glanced back at Carroll.

"I've never heard the river so plainly before," he said. "It must be unusually swollen."

The mine was situated on a narrow level flat between the hillside and the river, and Carroll understood the anxiety in his comrade's voice. Urging the wearied horses they pressed on a little faster. It was almost dark, however, when they reached the edge of an opening in the firs and saw a cluster of iron-roofed, wooden buildings and a tall chimney-stack, in front of which the unsightly ore-dump extended. Wet, chilled and worn out as the men were, there was comfort in the sight; but Vane frowned as he noticed that a shallow lake stretched between him and the buildings. On one side of it there was a broad strip of tumbling foam, which rose and fell in confused upheavals and filled the forest with the roar it made. Vane drove his horse into the water; and dismounting among the stumps before the ore-dump, he found a wet and soil-stained man awaiting him. A long trail of smoke floated away from the iron stack behind him, and through the sound of the river there broke the clank and thud of hard-driven pumps.

"You have got a big head of steam up, Salter," he remarked.

The man nodded.

"We want it. It's a taking me all my time to keep the water out of the workings; and the boys are over their ankles in the new drift. Leave your horses—I'll send along for them—and I'll show you what we've been doing, after supper."

"I'd rather go now, while I'm wet," Vane answered. "We came straight on as soon as we landed, and I probably shouldn't feel like turning out again when I'd had a meal."

Salter made a sign of assent, and a few minutes later they went down into the mine. The approach to it looked like a canal, and they descended the shallow shaft amid a thin cascade. The tunnel slanted, for the lode dipped, and the pale lights that twinkled here and there among the timbering showed shadowy, half-naked figures toiling in water which rose well up their boots. Further streams of it ran in from fissures; and Vane's face grew grave as he plodded through the flood with a lamp in his hand. He spent an hour in the workings, asking Salter a question now and then, and afterward went back with him to one of the iron-roofed sheds, where he put on dry clothes and sat down to a meal.

When it was over and the table had been cleared, he lay in a canvas chair beside the stove, listening to the resinous billets snapping and crackling cheerfully. The little, brightly lighted room was pleasantly warm, and Vane was filled with a languid sense of physical comfort after long exposure to rain and bitter wind. The deluge roared upon the iron roof; the song of the river rose and fell, filling the place with sound; and now and then the pounding and clanking of the pumps broke in.

Vane examined the sheet of figures Salter handed him, and lighted a fresh cigar when he had laid it down. Then he carefully turned over some of the pieces of stone which partly covered the table.

"There's no doubt that those specimens aren't quite so promising," he said at length; "and the cost of extraction is going up. I'll have a talk with Nairn when I get back; but in the meanwhile it looks as if we were going to have trouble with the water."

"It's a thing I've been afraid of for some time," Salter answered. "We can keep down any leakage that comes in through the rock, though it means driving the pumps hard, but an inrush from the river would beat us. A rise of a foot or so would turn the flood into the workings." He paused and added significantly: "Drowning out a mine's a costly matter. My idea is that you ought to double our pumping power and cut down the rock in the river-bed near the rapid. That would take off three or four feet of water."

"It would mean a mighty big wages bill."

Salter nodded gravely.

"To do the thing properly would cost a pile of money; but it's an outlay that you'll surely have to face."

Vane let the matter drop, and an hour later retired to his wooden berth. The roar of the rain upon the vibrating roof was like the roll of a great drum, and the sound of the river's turmoil throbbed through the frail wooden shack; but the man had lain down at night near many a rapid and thundering fall, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. He was awakened by a new shrill note, which he recognized as the whistle of the pumping engine. It was sounding the alarm. The next moment Vane was struggling into his clothing; then the door swung open and Salter stood in the entrance, lantern in hand, with water trickling from him. There was keen anxiety in his expression.

"Flood's lapping the bank top now!" he gasped. "There's a jam in the narrow place at the head of the rapid and the water's backing up! I'm going along with the boys."

He vanished as suddenly as he had appeared and Vane savagely jerked on his jacket. If the mine were drowned, it would entail a heavy expenditure in pumping plant to clear out the water, and even then operations might be stopped for a considerable time. What was more, it would precipitate a crisis in the affairs of the company and necessitate an increase of its capital.

Vane was outside in less than a minute and stood still, looking about him, while the deluge lashed his face and beat his clothing against his limbs. He could make out only a blurred mass of climbing trees on one side and a strip of foam cutting through the black level, which he supposed was water, in front of him. His trained ears, however, gave him a little information, for the clamor of the flood was broken by a sharp snapping and crashing which he knew was made by a mass of driftwood driving furiously against the boulders. In that region, the river banks are encumbered here and there with great logs, partly burned by forest fires, reaped by gales or brought down from the hillsides by falls of frost-loosened soil. A flood higher than usual sets them floating, and on subsiding sometimes leaves them packed in a gorge or stranded in a shallow to wait for the next big rise. Now they were driving down and, as Salter had said, jamming at the head of the rapid.

Suddenly a column of fierce white radiance leaped up, lower down-stream, and Vane knew that a big compressed air-lamp had been carried to the spot where the driftwood was gathering. Even at a distance, the brightness of the blaze dazzled him, and he could see nothing else when he headed toward it. He stumbled against a fir stump, and the next minute the splashing about his feet warned him that he was entering the water. Having no wish to walk into the main stream, he floundered to one side. Getting nearer to the blaze, he soon made out a swarm of shadowy figures scurrying about beneath it. Some of them had saws or axes, for he caught the gleam of steel. He broke into a splashing run; and presently Carroll, whom he had forgotten, came up calling to him.



CHAPTER XX

THE FLOOD

When he reached the blast-lamp, which was raised on a tall tripod, Vane stood with his back to the pulsating gaze while he grasped the details of a somewhat impressive scene. A little upstream of him, the river leaped out of the darkness, breaking into foaming waves, and a wall of dripping firs flung back the roar it made, the first rows of serried trunks standing out hard and sharp in the fierce white light. Nearer the spot where he stood, a projecting spur of rock narrowed in the river, which boiled tumultuously against its foot, while about halfway across, the top of a giant boulder rose above the flood.

Vane could just see it, because a mass of driftwood, which was momentarily growing, stretched from bank to bank. A big log, drifting down sidewise, had brought up against the boulder and once fixed had seized and held fast each succeeding trunk. Some had been driven partly out upon those that had preceded them; some had been drawn beneath and catching the bottom had jammed; then the rest had been wedged by the current into the gathering mass, trunks, branches and brushwood all finding a place. When the stream is strong, a jam usually extends downward, as well as rises, as the water it pens back increases in depth, until it forms an almost solid barrier from surface to bed. If it occurs during a log-drive the river is choked with valuable lumber.

Bent figures were at work with handspikes and axes at the shoreward end of the mass; others had crawled out along the logs in search of another point where they could advantageously be attacked; but Vane, watching them with practised eye, decided that they were largely throwing their toil away. Then he glanced down-stream; but, powerful as the light was, it did not pierce far into the darkness and the rain, and the mad white rush of the rapid vanished abruptly into the surrounding gloom. He caught the clink of a hammer on a drill, and seeing Salter not far away, he strode toward him.

"How are you getting to work?" he asked.

Salter pointed to the foot of the rock on which they stood.

"I reckoned that if we could put a shot in yonder we might cut out stone enough to clear the butts of the larger logs that are keying up the jam."

"You're wasting time—starting at the wrong place."

"It's possible; but what am I to do? I'd rather split that boulder or chop down to the king log there—but the boys can't get across."

"Have they tried?" Vane demanded. "I will, if it's necessary."

Salter expostulated.

"I want to point out that you're the boss director of this company. I don't know what you're making out of it; but you can hire men to do that kind of work for three dollars a day."

"We'll let the boys try it, if they're willing."

Vane raised his voice.

"Are any of you open to earn twenty dollars? I'll pay that to the man who'll put a stick of giant-powder in yonder boulder, and another twenty to any one who can find the king log and chop it through."

Three or four of them crept cautiously along the driftwood bridge. It heaved and worked beneath them; the foam sluiced across it and the stream forced the thinner tops of shattered trees above the barrier. It was obvious that the men were risking life and limb, and there was a cry from the others when one of them went down and momentarily disappeared. He scrambled to his feet again, but those behind him stopped, bracing themselves against the stream, nearly waist-deep in rushing froth. Most of them had followed rough and dangerous occupations in the bush; but they were not professional river-Jacks trained to high proficiency in log-driving, and one of them, turning, shouted to the watchers on the bank.

"This jam's not solid!" he explained above the roar of the water. "She's working open and shutting; and you can't tell where the breaks are."

He stooped and rubbed his leg, and Vane understood him to add:

"Figured I had it smashed."

Vane swung round toward Carroll.

"We'll give them a lead!"

Salter ventured another expostulation:

"Stay where you are! How are you going to manage, if the boys can't tackle the thing?"

"They haven't as much at stake as I have," was Vane's reply. "I'm a director of the company, as you pointed out. Give me two sticks of giant-powder, some fuse, and detonators!"

Salter yielded when he saw that Vane meant to be obeyed; and cramming the blasting material into his pocket, Vane turned to Carroll.

"Are you coming with me?"

"Since I can't stop you, I suppose I'd better go."

As they sprang down the bank, Salter addressed one of the miners at work near him.

"I've seen a few company bosses in my time, but this one's different from the rest. I can't imagine any of the others wanting to cross that jam."

Vane crawled out on the groaning timber, with Carroll a few feet behind him. The perilous bridge they traversed rolled beneath their feet; but they had joined the other men before they came to any particularly troublesome opening. Then the clustering wet figures were brought up by a gap filled with leaping foam, in the midst of which brushwood swung to and fro and projecting branches ground on one another. Whether there was solid timber a foot or two beneath, or only the entrance to some cavity by which the stream swept through the barrier, there was nothing to show; but Vane set his lips and leaped. He alighted on something that bore him, and when the others followed, floundering and splashing, the deliberation which hitherto had characterized their movements suddenly deserted them. They had reached the limit beyond which it was no longer needful.

There is courage which springs from knowledge, often painfully acquired, of the threatened dangers and the best means of avoiding them; but it carries its possessor only so far. Beyond that point he must face the risk he cannot estimate and blindly trust to chance. At sea, when canvas is still the propelling power, and in the wilderness, man at grips with the elemental forces must now and then rise above bodily shrinking and disregard the warnings of reason. There are tasks which cannot be undertaken in cold blood; and when they had crossed the gap, Vane and those behind him blundered on in hot Berserker fury. They had risen to the demand on them, and the curious psychic change had come; now they must achieve success or face annihilation. But in this there was nothing unusual; it is the alternative offered many a log-driver, miner and sailorman.

Neither Vane nor Carroll, nor any of those who assisted them, had a clear recollection of what they did. Somehow they reached the boulder; somehow they plied ax or iron-hooked peevy, while the unstable, foam-lapped platform rocked beneath their feet. Every movement entailed a peril no one could calculate; but they toiled savagely on. When Vane began to swing a hammer above a drill, or from whom he got it, he did not know, any more than he remembered when he had torn off and thrown away his jacket although the sticks of giant-powder which had been in his pocket lay near him upon the stone. Sparks leaped from the drill which Carroll held and fell among the coils of snaky fuse; but that did not trouble them; and it was only when Vane was breathless that he changed places with his companion. They heard neither the turmoil of the flood nor the crashing of the timber, and the foam that lapped their long boots whirled unheeded by.

About them, bowed figures that breathed in stertorous gasps grappled desperately with the grinding, smashing timber. Sometimes they were forced up in harsh distinctness by a dazzling glare; sometimes they faded into blurred shadows as the pulsating flame upon the bank sank a little or was momentarily blown aside; but all the while gorged veins rose on bronzed foreheads and toil-hardened muscles were taxed to the utmost. At last, when a trunk rolled beneath him, Carroll missed a stroke and realized with a shock of dismay that it was not the drill he had struck with his hammer.

"I couldn't help it!" he gasped. "Where did I hit you?"

"Get on!" Vane cried hoarsely; "I can hold the drill."

Carroll struck for a few more minutes, and then flung down the hammer and inserted the giant-powder into the holes sunk in the stone. He lighted the fuse and, warning the others, they hastily recrossed the dangerous bridge. They had reached the edge of the forest when, a flash leaped up amid the foam and a sharp crash was followed by a deafening, drawn-out uproar. Rending, grinding, smashing, the jam broke up. It hammered upon the partly shattered boulder, and, carrying it away or driving over it, washed in tremendous ruin down the rapid. When the wild clamor had subsided, Salter gave the men some instructions; and then, as they approached the lamp, he noticed Vane's reddened hand.

"That looks a nasty smash; you want to get it seen to," he advised.

"I'll get it dressed at the settlement; we'll make an early start to-morrow. We were lucky in breaking the jam; but you'll have the same trouble over again any time a heavy flood brings down an unusual quantity of driftwood."

"It's what I'd expect."

"Then something will have to be done to prevent it. I'll go into the matter when I reach the city."

Carroll and Vane walked back to the shack, where the latter bound up his comrade's injured hand. When he had done so, Vane managed to light a cigar, and lying back, still very wet, he looked thoughtful.

"We can't risk having the workings drowned; but I'm afraid the cost of the remedy will force me into sanctioning some scheme for increasing our capital."

"Its a very common procedure," Carroll rejoined. "I've wondered why you had so strong an objection to it. Of course, I've heard your business reasons."

Vane smiled.

"I have some of a different kind—we'll call them sentimental ones—though I don't think I quite realized it until lately."

"You're not given to introspection. Go on; I think I know what's coming."

"To put the thing into words may help me to formulate my ideas; they're rather hazy. Well, ostensibly, I left England as the result of a difference of opinion—which I've regretted ever since—though I know now that really it was from another cause. I wanted room, I wanted freedom; and I got them both—freedom either to do work that nearly broke my heart and wore the flesh off me or to starve."

"The experience is not an unusual one."

"Eventually," Vane proceeded, "I managed to get on my feet. I suppose I got rather proud of myself when I beat the city men over the floating of the mine, and I began to think of going back to the sphere of life in which I was born—excuse the phrase."

"It looked nice, from a distance," Carroll suggested.

"It was tolerable in Vancouver; anyway, while I could go straight ahead and interest myself in the development of the mine. I began to expect a good deal from my English visit."

Carroll laughed softly before he helped him out.

"And you were bitterly disappointed. It's a very old tale. You had cut loose—and you couldn't get back when you wanted to."

"I suppose I'd changed: the bush had got hold of me. The ways and views of the people over yonder didn't seem to be those I remembered. They couldn't look at things from my standpoint; I wouldn't adopt theirs. You and I have had to face—realities."

"Hunger," corrected Carroll softly; "wet snow to sleep in; bodily exhaustion. They probably teach one something, or, at any rate, they alter one's point of view. When you've marched for days on half rations, some things don't seem so important—how you put on your clothes, for instance, or how your dinner's served. But I don't see yet what bearing this has on your reluctance to extend the Clermont operations."

"I could act as director, with such men as Nairn, when it was a question of running a mine; but it's doubtful if I'd make a successful financial juggler. It's hard to keep one's hands off some of the professional tricksters. Bluff, assumption, make-believe—Pshaw! I've had enough of them. Better stick to the ax and cross-cut; that's what I feel to-night."

"Now that you've relieved your mind, I'll show you where you were wrong. You said that you had changed in the wilderness—you haven't; your kind are fore-loopers born. Your place is with the vedettes, ahead of the massed columns. But there's a point that strikes one—is your objection to financial scheming due to honesty or pride?"

Vane laughed.

"I suspect a good deal of it's bad temper. Anyhow, I've felt that rather than truckle with that fellow Horsfield I'd like to pitch him down the stairs. But all this is pretty random talk."

"It is," Carroll agreed. "You haven't said whether you intend to authorize that extension of capital?"

"I suppose it will have to be done. And now it's very late and I'm going to sleep."

They retired to the wooden bunks Salter had placed at their disposal; and early the next morning they left the mine. Vane got his hand dressed when they reached the little mining town at the head of the railroad, and on the following day they arrived in Vancouver.



CHAPTER XXI

VANE YIELDS A POINT

The short afternoon was drawing toward its close when Vane came out of a large building in the city. Glancing at his watch, he stopped on the steps.

"The meeting went pretty satisfactorily, taking it all round," he remarked to Carroll.

"I think so," agreed his companion. "But I'm far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders' decision."

Vane smiled in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property in which he had been asked to take an interest, and had got back only in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting, of the kind that is sometimes correctly described as extraordinary, was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous.

"Though I don't see what the man could have gained by it, I'm inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he'd have carried his total reconstruction scheme. That wouldn't have pleased me."

"I thought it injudicious."

"It was only because we must raise more money that I agreed to the issue of the new block of shares," Vane went on. "We ought to pay a fair dividend on the moderate sum in question."

"You think you'll get it?"

"I've not much doubt."

Carroll made no reply to this. Vane was capable and forceful; but his abilities were of a practical rather than a diplomatic order, and he was occasionally addicted to somewhat headstrong action. Knowing that he had a very cunning antagonist intriguing against him, his companion had misgivings.

"Shall we walk back to the hotel?" he suggested.

"No," answered Vane; "I'll go across and see how Celia Hartley's getting on. I'm afraid I've been forgetting her."

"Then I'll come too. You may need me; there are matters which you're not to be trusted to deal with alone."

Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them.

"Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening."

He passed on, and they set off together across the city toward the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, a few years ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail and fissured, they were not the kind of places anyone who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery; and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her. There were cracks in the thin, boarded walls, from which a faint resinous odor exuded, but it failed to hide the sour smell of the wet sawdust upon which the shack was built. The room, which was almost bare of furniture, felt damp and unwholesome.

"You oughtn't to be at work; you don't look fit," Vane said to Celia. He paused a moment, hesitating, before he added: "I'm sorry we couldn't find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we're going back to try again."

The girl smiled bravely.

"Then you'll find it the next time. I'm glad I'm able to do a little; it brings in a few dollars."

"But what are you doing?"

"Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterward some friends of hers sent me two or three more to trim. She said she'd try to get me work from one of the big stores."

"But you're not a milliner, are you?" asked Vane, feeling grateful to Jessy for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.

"Celia's something better," Kitty broke in. "She's a genius."

"Isn't that a slight on the profession?" Vane laughed.

He was anxious to lead the conversation away from Miss Horsfield's action; he shrank from figuring as the benefactor who had prompted her.

"I'm not quite sure," he continued, "what genius really is."

"I don't altogether agree with the definition of it as the capacity for taking infinite pains," Carroll, guessing his companion's thoughts, remarked with mock sententiousness. "In Miss Hartley's case, it strikes me as the instinctive ability to evolve a finished work of art from a few fripperies, without the aid of technical training. Give her two or three feathers, a yard of ribbon and a handful of mixed sundries, and she'll magically transmute them into—this."

He took up a hat from the table and surveyed it with an air of critical intelligence.

"It was innate genius that set this plume at the one artistic angle. Had it been done by less capable hands, the thing would have looked like a decorated beehive."

The others laughed, and he led them on to general chatter, under cover of which Vane presently drew Drayton to the door.

"The girl looks far from fit," he said. "Has the doctor been over lately?"

"Two or three days ago," answered Drayton. "We've been worried about Celia. It's out of the question that she should go back to the hotel, and she can only manage to work a few hours daily. There's another thing—the clerk of the fellow who owns these shacks has just been along for his rent. It's overdue."

"Where's he now?"

Drayton laughed, for the sounds of a vigorous altercation rose from farther up the unlighted street.

"I guess he's yonder, having some more trouble with his collecting."

"I'll fix that matter, anyway."

Vane disappeared into the darkness, and it was some time later when he re-entered the shack. He waited until a remark of Celia's gave him a lead.

"You're really a partner in the lumber scheme," he told her; "I can't see why you shouldn't draw part of your share in the proceeds beforehand."

"The first payment isn't to be made until you find the spruce and get your lease," the girl reminded him. "You've already paid a hundred dollars that we had no claim on."

"That doesn't matter; I'm going to find it."

"Yes," agreed Celia, with a look of confidence, "I think you will. But"—a flicker of color crept into her thin face—"I can't take any more money until it is found."

Vane, failing in another attempt to shake her resolution, dropped the subject, and soon afterward he and Carroll took their departure. They were sitting in their hotel, waiting for dinner, when Carroll looked up lazily from his luxurious chair.

"What are you thinking about so hard?" he inquired.

Vane glanced meaningly round the elaborately furnished room.

"There's a contrast between all this and that rotten shack. Did you notice that Celia never stopped sewing while we were there, though she once or twice leaned back rather heavily in her chair?"

"I did. I suppose you're going to propound another conundrum of a kind I've heard before—why you should have so many things you don't particularly need, while Miss Hartley must go on sewing when she's hardly able for it in her most unpleasant shack? I don't know whether the fact that you found a mine answers the question; but if it doesn't the thing's beyond your philosophy."

"Come off!" Vane bade him with signs of impatience. "There are times when your moralizing gets on one's nerves. Anyhow, I straightened out one difficulty—I found the rent man, who'd been round worrying her, and got rid of him."

Carroll groaned in mock dismay, which covered some genuine annoyance with himself; but Vane frowned.

"What's the matter?" he inquired. "Do you want a drink?"

"I'll get over it," Carroll informed him. "It isn't the first time I've suffered from the same complaint. But I'd like to point out that your chivalrous impulses may be the ruin of you some day. Why didn't you let Drayton settle with the man? You gave him a check, I suppose?"

"Sure. I'd only a few loose dollars with me." Vane frowned again. "Now I see what you're driving at; and I want to say that any little reputation I possess can pretty well take care of itself."

"Just so. No doubt it will be necessary; but it doesn't seem to have struck you that you're not the only person concerned."

"It didn't," Vane confessed with a further show of irritation. "But who's likely to hear or take any notice of the thing?"

"I can't tell; but you make enemies as well as friends, and you're walking in slippery places which you're not altogether accustomed to. You can't meet your difficulties with the ax here."

"That's true," assented Vane. "It's rather a pity. Anyhow, I'm not to be scared out of my interest in Celia Hartley."

"What is your interest in her? It's a question that may be asked."

"As you pretend that you don't know, I'll have pleasure in telling you again. When I first struck this city, played out and ragged, she was waitress at a little hotel, and she brought me a double portion of the nicest things at supper. What's more, she sewed up some of my clothes, and I struck a job on the strength of looking comparatively decent. It's the kind of thing you're apt to remember. One doesn't meet with too much kindness in this blamed censorious world."

"I'd expect you to remember," Carroll smiled.

They went in to dinner and when the meal was over they walked across to Nairn's. They were ushered into a room in which several other guests were assembled, and Vane sat down beside Jessy Horsfield. A place on the sofa she occupied was invitingly empty; he did not know, of course, that she had adroitly got rid of her previous companion as soon as he came in.

"I want to thank you; I was over at Miss Hartley's this afternoon," he began.

"I understood that you were at the mining meeting."

"So I was, your brother would tell you that—"

Vane broke off, remembering that he had defeated Horsfield; but Jessy laughed encouragingly.