A Damaged Reputation Part 5

"I should be very much inclined to take it. Still, presumably, you do not mean to do it out of pure good-nature?"

"No, sir," said Saxton, drily. "I'm here to make dollars. That has been my object since I struck out for myself at fourteen, and I've piled quite a few of them together. I'd have had more only that wherever I plan a nice little venture in mines or land up and down this province, I run up against Devine. That's quite straight, isn't it?"

"I fancy it is. You are suggesting community of interest? Still, I scarcely realize how a man with empty pockets could be of very much use to you."

"I have a kind of notion that you could be if it suited you. I want a man with grit in him, who has had a good education, and could, if it was necessary, mix on equal terms with the folks in the cities."

"One would fancy there were a good many men of that kind in Canada."

Saxton appeared reflective. "Oh, yes," he said, drily. "The trouble is that most of them have got something better to do, and I can't think of one who has any special reason for wanting to get even with Devine."

"That means the work you have in view would scarcely suit a man who was prosperous, or likely to be fastidious?"

"No," said Saxton, simply. "I don't quite think it would. Still, I've seen enough to show me that you can take the sensible point of view. We both want dollars, and I can't afford to be particular. I'm not sure you can, either."

Brooke sat silent awhile. He could, at least, appreciate the Canadian's candor, while events had rubbed the sentiment he had once had plenty of out of him, and left him a somewhat hard and bitter man. The woman he believed in had used him very badly, and the first man he trusted in Canada had plundered him. Brooke was, unfortunately, young when he was called upon to face the double treachery, and had generalized too freely from too limited premises. He felt that in all society there must be a conflict between the men who had all to gain and those who had anything worth keeping, and sentiment, it seemed, was out of place in that struggle.

"As you observed, I can't afford to be too particular," he said. "Still, it is quite possible I might not be prepared to go quite so far as you would wish me."

The Canadian laughed. "I'll take my chances. n.o.body can bring up any very low-down game against me. Well, are you open to consider my offer?"

"You haven't exactly made one yet."

"Then we'll fix the terms. Until one of us gives the other notice that he lets up on this agreement, you will do just what I tell you. Pay will be about the usual thing for whatever you're set to do. It would be reasonably high if I put you on to anything in the cities."

"Is that likely?"

"I've a notion that we might get you into a place where you could watch Devine's game for me. I want to feel quite sure of it before I take any chances with that kind of man. If I struck him for anything worth while, you would have a share."

Brooke's face flushed just a trifle, and again he sat silent a moment or two. Then he laughed somewhat curiously.

"Well," he said, "I suppose there are no other means, and the man robbed me."

Saxton smiled. "If we pull off the deal I'm figuring on, your share might 'most work up to those six thousand dollars. They're yours."

Brooke realized that it was a clever man he was dealing with, but in his present state of mind the somewhat vague arrangement commended itself to him. He was, he decided, warranted in getting his six thousand dollars back by any means that were open to him. More he did not want, for he still retained in a slight degree the notions instilled into him in England, which had, however, since he was seldom able to indulge in them, not tended to make him happier.

"There is a point you don't seem to have grasped," he said. "Since I am not to be particular, can't you conceive that it would not be pleasant for you if Devine went one better?"

Saxton laughed. "I've met quite a few Englishmen--of your kind--already," he said. "That's why I feel that when you've taken my dollars you're not going to go back on me without giving me warning.

Besides, Devine would be considerably more likely to fix you up in quite another way. Now, I want an answer. Is it a deal?"

"It is," said Brooke, who, in spite of the fas.h.i.+on in which he had expressed himself during the last few minutes, felt a slight warmth in his face. Though he could not afford to be particular, there was one aspect of the arrangement which did not commend itself to him.

Saxton nodded. "Then, as you'll want to know a little about mining, we'll put you on now, helping the drillers, at $2.50 a day. You'll get considerably more by-and-by. Take this little treatise on the minerals of the province, and keep it by you."

V.

BARBARA RENEWS AN ACQUAINTANCE.

There was an amateur concert for a commendable purpose in the Vancouver opera-house, which, since the inhabitants of the mountain province do not expect any organized body to take over their individual responsibilities, was a somewhat unusual event, and Miss Barbara Heathcote, who had not as yet found it particularly entertaining, was leaning back languidly in her chair.

"There are really one or two things they do a little better in the Old Country," she said.

The young man who sat beside her laughed. "There must be, or you never would have admitted it," he said. "Still, I'm not sure you would find many folks who would believe you here."

"One has to be candid occasionally," and Barbara made a little gesture of weariness. "There is still another hour of it, but, I sincerely hope, not another cornet solo. What comes next? We were a little late, and n.o.body provided me with a programme. They are inconsistent. Milly, I notice, has several."

The man opened the paper which a girl Barbara glanced at handed him.

"A violin solo," he said. "I think they mean Schumann, but it's not altogether astonis.h.i.+ng that they've spelt it wrong. A man called Brooke is put down for it."

"Brooke!" said Barbara, a trifle sharply. "Where does he come from? Do you know him?"

"I can't say I do----" the man commenced reflectively, and stopped a moment when he saw the little smile in the girl's brown eyes. "What were you thinking?"

"I was wondering whether that means he can't be worth knowing."

"Well," said the man, good-humoredly, "there are, I believe, one or two decent folks in this city I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, but you were a trifle too previous. I don't know him, but if he's the man I think he is, I've heard about him. He came down from the bush lately, and somebody put him on to Naseby, the surveyor. Naseby's busy just now, doing a good deal for the Government--Crown mineral lands, I think, or something of that kind--and he took the man. I understand he's quite smart at the bush work, and Naseby's pleased with him. That's about all I can tell you. You're scarcely likely to know him."

Barbara sat silent a s.p.a.ce, looking about her while the amateur orchestra chased one another through the treacherous mazes of an overture. The handsome building was well filled, but there were one or two empty places at hand, for the man who had sent her there had taken a row of them and sent tickets to his friends, as was expected from a citizen of his importance. It was, in the usual course, scarcely likely that she would know a man who had lately been installed in a subordinate place in a surveyor's service, for her acquaintances were people of position in that province, and yet she had a very clear recollection of a certain rancher Brooke who played the violin.

"I once met a man of that name in the bush," she said, with almost overdone indifference. "Still, he is scarcely likely to be the same one."

Her companion started another topic, and neither of them listened to the orchestra, though the girl was a trifle irritated at herself for wis.h.i.+ng that the overture had been shorter. At last, when the second violins were not more than a note behind the rest, the music stopped, and Barbara sat very still with eyes fixed on the stage while the usual little stir and rustle of draperies ran round the building. Then there was silence for a moment, and she was sensible of a curious little thrill as a man who held a violin came forward into the blaze of light.

He wore conventional evening-dress in place of the fringed deerskin she had last seen him in, and she decided that it became his somewhat spare, symmetrical figure almost as well. The years he had spent swinging axe and pounding drill had toughened and suppled it, and yet left him free from the coa.r.s.ening stamp of toil, which is, however, not as a rule a necessary accompaniment of strenuous labor in that country. Standing still a moment quietly at his ease, straight-limbed, sinewy, with a little smile in his frost-bronzed face, he was certainly a personable man, and for no very apparent reason she was pleased to notice that two of her companions were regarding him with evident approbation.

"I think one could call him quite good-looking," said the girl beside her. "He has been in this country a while, but I wouldn't call him a Canadian. Not from this side of the Rockies, anyway."

"Why?" asked Barbara, mainly to discover how far her companion's thoughts coincided with her own.

"Well," said the other girl, reflectively, "it seems to me he takes it too easily. If he had been one of us he'd have either been grim and serious or worrying with the strings. We're most desperately in earnest, but they do things as though they didn't count in the Old Country. Now he has got the A right off without the least fussing, as if he couldn't help doing it."

The explanation was rather suggestive than definite, but Barbara was satisfied with it. She was usually a reposeful young woman herself, and the man's graceful tranquillity, which was of a kind not to be met with every day in that country, appealed to her. Then he drew the bow across the strings, and she sat very still to listen. It was not music that a good many of his audience were accustomed to, but scarcely a dress rustled or a programme fluttered until he took the fiddle from his shoulder. Then, while the plaudits rang through the building, his eyes met Barbara's. Leaning forward a trifle in her chair, she saw the sudden intentness of his face, but he gazed at her steadily for a moment without sign of recognition. Then she smiled graciously, for that was what she had expected of him, and again felt a faint thrill of content, for his eyes were fixed on her when as the tumult of applause increased he made a little inclination.

He was not permitted to retire, and when he put the fiddle to his shoulder again she knew why he played the nocturne she had heard in the bush. It was also, she felt, in a fas.h.i.+on significant that it had now, in place of the roar of a snow-fed river, the chords of a grand piano for accompaniment, though the latter, it seemed to her, made an indifferent subst.i.tute. The bronze-faced man in deerskin had fitted the surroundings in which she had seen him, and they had been close comrades in the wilderness for a week. It could, she knew, scarcely be the same in the city, but she saw that he was, at least, equally at home there.

It was only their relative positions that had changed, for the guide was the person of importance in the primeval bush, and the fact that he had waited without a sign until she smiled showed that he had not failed to recognize it. When at last he moved away she turned to the man at her side.

"Will you go down and ask Mr. Brooke to come here?" she said. "You can tell him that I would like to speak to him."

The young man did not express any of the astonishment he certainly felt, but proceeded to do her bidding, though it afforded him no particular pleasure, for there was a certain imperiousness about Barbara Heathcote which was not without its effect. Brooke was putting away his fiddle when he came upon him.

"I haven't the pleasure of your acquaintance, Mr. Brooke, but it seems you know a friend of mine," he said. "If you are at liberty, Miss Heathcote would like to see you."