Delilah of the Snows Part 20

"I've ever so much on hand," he said. "Send Tom."

Hetty made a little authoritative gesture. "Tom couldn't hit a deer to save his life, and my boys are expected to do what they're told. You will take him, Mr. Sewell, and if you let him come back to the claim in less than a week I'll be vexed with you."

Ingleby, who knew that Hetty could be persistent, permitted Sewell to arrange the expedition; and when the latter retired shortly afterwards, Tomlinson, who had said very little, looked up.

"You like that man?" he asked.

"Of course!" said Hetty. "If I hadn't I wouldn't have had him here."

Tomlinson said nothing further, but Hetty laughed when he glanced inquiringly at Ingleby.

"You needn't ask Walter. There are two people he believes in before anybody else, and Mr. Sewell's one of them."

"And I guess I know who the other is," said Tomlinson, who was a trifle tactless now and then.

Hetty looked at him instead of at Ingleby.

"No," she said reflectively, "I don't think you do. It doesn't matter who she is, anyway, and you haven't told me what you think of Mr.

Sewell."

Tomlinson, who watched her with steady eyes, sat silent a moment as though ruminating over something he could not quite understand. Then he said, "The man has grit. Still, I haven't much use for his notion of going round trailing out trouble."

"It isn't difficult to find it," said Ingleby.

"Well," said Tomlinson, "I'm not going to light out when it comes along my way; but I guess I'll wait until it does, like a sensible man, and just now I have no use for any. Our folks in Oregon are poor, and if my luck holds out there's an old woman who's had 'bout as much trouble as she can bear going to have an easy time the rest of her life."

He stopped a moment and rose leisurely to his feet. "Well, I'll go along now. I guess Sewell means well. Good night."

He turned away, and when he lumbered into the shadow of the pines Leger smiled at Ingleby.

"It seems to me that Tomlinson's recommendation didn't go very far," he said.

Ingleby laughed, a trifle scornfully. "Did you expect anything else?

When a man who could have made himself almost anything he wished gives himself up to a life of privation for the good of his fellows, it's a little gained when men of Tomlinson's description are willing to admit that he probably has good intentions."

He retired to sleep shortly afterwards, for he and Leger commenced their labours at sunrise every day. A week later, towards dusk one evening, he and Sewell stopped near the edge of a deep ravine some distance from their camp in the ranges.

The torrent which had worn it out moaned far down in the shadow below, and the sombre firs rolled up to the edge of it two hundred yards away.

Thickets of tall fern and salmon-berry hung over the brink, and for a score of yards or so a slope of soil and gravel sprinkled with tufts of juniper and dwarf firs ran down steeper than a roof. Then it broke off abruptly, and from where they stood Ingleby could not see the bottom of the gulf beneath, though he knew that the depth of such canons is often several hundred feet. They had left their camp that morning, and one small black-tail deer, which Sewell had shot, was all they had to show for a day of strenuous labour.

"No way of getting across there," said Sewell as he flung himself down at the foot of a cedar. "It's a little unfortunate, too, because from what Tomlinson said it's a good bear country on the opposite side. One deer won't last very long even if we can manage to dry it, and there are parts of the black bear that are a good deal nicer than you might suppose."

"Have you ever tried them?" asked Ingleby.

Sewell laughed. "I have. In fact, I lived on black bear for rather longer than I cared about when I was up in the ranges once before. It's not unlike pork. I mean the kind the Canadian usually keeps for home consumption."

That a man, who could probably get nothing else, should have lived on bear meat is, of course, not necessarily any great recommendation, but the fact tended to increase Ingleby's respect for his companion. There was, it seemed, very little that Sewell had not done or borne for the cause of the Democracy, and Ingleby had already indued him with the qualities of Garibaldi. Other men, older and shrewder than he was, are, however, occasionally addicted to idealization; and Sewell could certainly ride and shoot as well as he could rouse the hopes and pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude--which was a good deal. Ingleby, who could do neither, had the Englishman's appreciation of physical capability, and it had once or twice been a grief to him to discover that other exponents of the opinions Sewell held were flabby, soft-fleshed men whose appearance warranted the belief that the adoption of the simple laborious life they lauded would promptly make an end of them.

The hard and wiry Sewell, who, while he preached his gospel, earned his bread by bodily toil, a man of comely presence and finished courtesy, Spartanly temperate in everything but speech, with unquestioned physical as well as moral courage, approached in his opinion the Paulinian ideal.

It was, however, seldom that he permitted it to become apparent, for Ingleby, like most men who shape their lives by them, kept his deeper thoughts to himself, and on that occasion he complained about a boot which had split in an untimely fas.h.i.+on at a seam, until Sewell looked up.

"Did you hear anything?" he asked.

Ingleby, who had not lived very long in the bush, naturally heard nothing until the sudden crash of a rifle was flung back by the hillside. Then there was a sharp smas.h.i.+ng of undergrowth, and it was plain to him that a beast of some description was travelling through the bush.

"A bear!" exclaimed Sewell. "The small black kind go straight at everything which lies between them and their covert. I fancy that one's partly crippled, too. It's your shot. If he breaks cover you might stop him for the man he belongs to."

Ingleby took up the rifle he was not greatly accustomed to, and waited, crouching, with his eyes on the forest and one foot drawn under him while the snapping and crackling drew nearer, until a shambling form lurched out of a thicket. Then, while the foresight, which he could not keep still, wobbled all over it, he pressed the trigger, or, at least, attempted to do so as the miner to whom the rifle belonged had instructed him. He felt the b.u.t.t jar his shoulder, and the smoke blew in his eyes, while a man burst out of the undergrowth. There was no sign of the bear, and Ingleby fancied it had plunged over the edge of the ravine. The man was red in face, and gasped as he brandished his rifle in their direction.

"Who the devil are you trying to shoot?" he said.

He did not stop, however; and Sewell, who recognized him as Major Coulthurst, sprang to his feet, and sent a warning shout after him.

"Hold on, sir. There's a big gully right in front of you," he said.

The major did not seem to hear him, and next moment there was a crash as he floundered through a thicket. Then he disappeared suddenly, and Ingleby felt a little s.h.i.+ver run through him as he heard a suggestive rattle of stones.

"Gone over!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Still, the top part's not quite so horribly steep."

They made for the spot at a floundering run, for it is a trifle difficult to travel fast in the bush, and came gasping to a rent in the undergrowth on the edge of the gully. Ingleby set his lips as he looked down.

The major, who looked up at them with fear in his eyes, lay full length on the steepest part of the slope beneath, with both hands clenched upon a little bush of juniper. Two or three yards beneath him lay a shadowy gulf, and the dull roar of water that came up suggested its depth.

"I think this thing is coming out," he said.

Ingleby saw a diminutive fir close to the man, and two more between himself and the edge of the canon, for in that country the firs will grow on anything short of an upright wall, and next moment he swung himself over the edge. However, he did it cautiously, taking care to drive his feet well into the gravel, and finally contrived to slide down to the nearest tree. Sewell was evidently coming down behind him, for the stones went rattling by and struck the upturned face beneath. It was flushed and distorted, with swollen veins on the forehead, for the man was evidently feeling the strain.

"Can you hold on for a minute or two, sir?" Ingleby asked.

"I might manage one--not more," was the hoa.r.s.e answer.

"That should do," said Ingleby rea.s.suringly, and letting himself go again clutched at the tree close above the brink of the declivity. He also grasped Sewell, who was coming down backwards amidst a shower of stones; and, when he arrived safe, lay full length with his comrade's hand upon his waist and one arm stretched out. Nor did he stop to consider whether he could get back to the tree again when the major clutched his hand.

"Hold fast, and we'll pull you up," he said.

Next moment a strenuous grip closed upon his hand, and he felt his arm being drawn out of its socket as he strove to bend his back. Coulthurst was horribly heavy and apparently incapable of rendering him any a.s.sistance. Indeed, for a moment or two he was far from sure that they would not slide down into the shadowy gorge together. He could see the major's suffused face and hear Sewell gasping behind him.

Then Coulthurst, apparently by a supreme effort, raised himself a trifle, and he was a foot or two nearer the fir when he lay p.r.o.ne again.

Ingleby fancied he could feel his sinews cracking, and knew they would not endure that tension long.

"Reach your left hand back!" said Sewell hoa.r.s.ely. Ingleby did so, and felt the bark of the slender tree, while Sewell leaned out recklessly over him and clutched Coulthurst's shoulder. Then, for a few seconds, they made a very grim effort, until the major got one foot under him and seized the tree. After that there was no great difficulty, and when they dragged him out of peril he lay still, gasping, for almost a minute.

Then he raised himself so that he could sit.

"I think my rifle went over," he said. "Where's the bear?"

Sewell's eyes twinkled, and Ingleby laughed, as did the major.

"Of course!" he said. "Very much obliged, I'm sure. I mean it.