Lorimer of the Northwest Part 15

"Shall we thank Providence for a good conceit of ourselves?" she said lightly, a little later. "You are hardly a Lancelot, Sir Railroad Builder; and she--is it a compliment to compare me with Arthur's faithless Queen?"

Thereupon I lapsed into silence, feeling like one who has blundered on the edge of a precipice; and Grace was silent too, for the day drew toward its close, and a red glare of sunset came, slanting in among the ma.s.sy trunks, striking strange glints of color from her hair, while winsome and graceful to the tiny foot in the stirrup, her lissom shape was outlined against it. Then for a while we left the woods, and rode down the hillside under the last of the afterglow, which blazed, orange, green and crimson, along the heights of eternal snow, calling up ruby flashes from the ragged edge of a glacier, while Grace seemed lost in wonder and awe. I do not think there are any sunsets in the world like those of British Columbia.

"It is unearthly--majestic!" she said half to herself. "And once I almost felt inclined to sympathize with a Transatlantic scribbler, who compared the Revelation to what he termed a wholesale jewelry show. He was a townsman who had never crossed the Rockies--and if there are glories like this on earth, what must the everlasting city be?"

The weird fires paled and faded, and the peaks were coldly solemn under their crown of snow, while a little breeze awoke strange harmonies among the cedars, and there was no more talking. Perhaps we were physically tired, though that day's march was a very slight task for me, but I felt that after what we had seen silence became me best. It was dark long before we rode into Cedar Crossing, and Grace was worn-out when I helped her from the saddle. Miss Carrington apparently found some difficulty in straightening herself, and when Calvert had installed them in the one second-rate hotel, after a visit to an acquaintance there, I sat smoking beneath a hemlock most of the night keeping guard over it. This was, of course, palpably absurd; but I was young, and from early ages many others have done much the same, while, though it seems the fas.h.i.+on to despise all sentiment now, it is probable that future generations will show traces of equal foolishness.

We finished the journey on the third day, but I did not see Colonel Carrington. He was busy at the mine, and it was not worth while wasting precious time in the really comfortable ranch he had hired, awaiting his return for the mere pleasure of exchanging greetings with him, while Grace was far too tired to entertain anybody.

Calvert looked awkward when he shook hands with me. "I don't quite know how to put it," he said, "but you will understand we can't take you away several days from your work gratuitously, and all transport is charged to the Syndicate. Being a trained engineer, I'm working manager, and, as a matter of business, what do I owe you?"

"Nothing!" I answered shortly. "I could take no payment for a.s.sisting Miss Carrington. If you like, you can send five dollars to the Vancouver hospital."

"I trust we'll be friends" said Calvert. "Hope I didn't offend you. Meant it in the best of faith. I'm coming round to see you, and whenever you have leisure you must look upon my quarters yonder as your own."

I rode back wondering whether the work had suffered during my absence, though I knew my partners would not complain, and when I reached camp Harry said:

"I hardly thought we'd set up as packers, but in the meantime all is fish that comes to our net. I'm getting quite a mercenary character. You had a long journey--how much did you get?"

"Nothing," I answered, "except a gift of five dollars for the Vancouver hospital. It was Miss Carrington."

Harry made no articulate comment at first, though his whistle, which from any one else would have been impertinence, was eloquent, while some moments elapsed before he spoke.

"Then it's Colonel Carrington who is running the Day Spring mine. I've heard the free prospectors talking about the new Syndicate. They opine there's nothing in it, and that somebody is going to be hard hit."

CHAPTER XV

UNDER THE SHADOW OF DEATH

In spite of the many new hands who flocked in with the spring, the line progressed slowly. This was quite comprehensible, and when I traveled over it afterward as a pa.s.senger I wondered how we had ever built it at all.

Portions were hewn out of the solid rock, of a hardness that was often too much for our most carefully tempered drills; others were underpinned with timber against the mountain side, or carried across deep ravines on open trestles; while much of it had to be roofed in by ma.s.sive sheds, so that the snow-slides might not hurl it into the valley.

On several occasions we were almost checkmated in our efforts to supply and clear a way for the builders. There was, of course, no lack of timber, but the difficulty was to get it out of the forest and into position, for we often spent days building skidways or hewing roads to bring the great logs down, after which it cost us even a longer time rigging gear to lower them over dangerous ledges to those who worked below. Still, we made progress, and the free miners or forest ranchers who trudged behind their weary pack-horses down the trail that crossed the track encouraged us in their own fas.h.i.+on, which was at times slightly eccentric; while now and then a party of citizens from the struggling town rode over to inspect the new road they hoped would do so much for them.

Sometimes they brought small presents with them, and I remember one who watched our efforts admiringly said: "You must be clearing your little pile by the way you're rustling," and looked blankly incredulous when I answered: "No; we're only trying to pay back other men their own."

Nevertheless, on occasions when the work was suspended temporarily, I made a two days' journey to Colonel Carrington's ranch, and spent a few blissful hours there beneath the cedars with his sister and Grace. Both seemed pleased to see me, and I managed to console myself for the absence of the Colonel and Ormond. They returned at sunset, when I took my departure, and even Ormond was usually disreputable of aspect. Many difficulties were connected with the development of the Day Spring mine, and when there was need for it Ormond showed himself a capable man of action. Night and day the freighters met him riding along the heavy trails, hurrying in tools and supplies, and the shaft-sinkers said that he was always foremost when there was risky work to be done. Once also, when I sat smoking in Calvert's shanty, the latter, who was freely smeared with the green mountain clay, said:

"We are none of us exactly idlers, but Geoffrey Ormond is tireless. In fact, I hardly recognize him as the same man, and it is just as well. We have sunk a good deal in this undertaking, and it will go hard with some of the Syndicate if we don't get out rich quartz. Ormond in particular invested, I think, almost recklessly. He's a distant connection of our leader's, you know, and it's probable he's hoping for Miss Carrington's hand. There's no doubt that the irascible Colonel would be glad to have him for a son-in-law, and he is really a very good fellow, but I'm not sure that Miss Carrington likes him--in that way."

Here Calvert flicked the ash off his cigar, and looked at me before he continued: "It's not my business, and perhaps I'm gossiping, but Colonel Carrington is not addicted to changing his mind, and I antic.i.p.ate a dramatic climax some day. In any case, she will never with his consent marry a poor man. You can take my word for it--I'm speaking feelingly."

When, after exchanging a few words of cold politeness with the Colonel, I rode homeward the next morning I wondered whether Calvert, who certainly was not given to gossiping, had intended this as a friendly warning. Every one in their own manner seemed bent on warning me, and yet, as long as Grace remained Miss Carrington, I could not give up hope, and it was that very hope that added force to every stroke of the glinting axe or another hour of toil to the weary day. And so, while spring melted into summer, I worked and waited until fate intervened.

Now between the mining town and Cedar the river loses itself in a gloomy canon, one of those awful gorges which are common among the mountains of British Columbia. Two great rocks partly close the entrance, and beyond this the chasm is veiled in spray, while its roar when the floods race through it can be heard several miles away. Scarcely a ray of sunlight enters its shadowy depths, and looking up from beside the entrance one can see the great pines that crown the sheer fall of rock looming against the skyline in a slender lace-like filigree. Sometimes, when frost bound fast the feeding snows, the Siwash Indians ran their light canoes through, but I never heard of a white man attempting the pa.s.sage, and one glance was sufficient to show the reason. I understood it better when as by a miracle I came alive out of the canon.

It was a still evening, and again the afterglow flamed behind the western pines, when, holding Caesar's rein, I stood under a hemlock talking to Grace Carrington. We had been compelled to wait for more ironwork, and I made the long journey on the specious excuse of visiting a certain blacksmith who was skilled in sharpening tools. Calvert's offer of hospitality was now proving an inestimable boon. Harry pointed out that we had a man in camp who could do the work equally well, but I found a temporary deafness convenient then.

"It was very kind of you to suggest it, and if you could get the things in by your supply train we should be very glad," she said. "I really do not know whom to write to, and the pack-horse freighters often wet or spoil them. Aunt and I intend to spend a few days at the Lawrences' ranch, and you could meet us with the package at the canon crossing on Thursday morning."

I glanced at the list she handed me, and wondered what Harry, who had to visit Vancouver, would say when he found I had pledged him to ransack the dry-goods stores for all kinds of fabrics. Still, I felt I should have faced much more than my comrades' remonstrances to please Grace Carrington then, as she stood beside me, glorified as it were by the garish sunset.

"My aunt will be especially grateful," she added. "And now, good-bye. She will never forgive you if you damage her new dress."

She spoke with a half-mocking and wholly bewitching air, for when Grace unbent she did it charmingly, holding out a shapely hand, while the light sparkled among the glossy cl.u.s.ters above her forehead. Grace's hair might have been intended for a net in which to catch stray suns.h.i.+ne. Then while I prepared to take up the challenge the slender fingers tightened on my own.

"What was that?" she asked with a start, for a wild shrill cry rang suddenly out of the stillness, and the hillside returned the sound in a doleful wailing before it died away.

"Only a loon, a water-bird!" I said, though the cry had also startled me.

Grace s.h.i.+vered as she answered: "I have never heard it before, and it sounded so unearthly--almost like a warning of some evil. But it is growing late, and you have far to go. I shall expect you at the crossing."

She turned back toward the house, and I laughed at my momentary confusion as I rode on through the deepening shadow, for though it is strangely mournful the loon's shrill call was nothing unusual in that land. Still, mere coincidence as it was, remembering Grace's s.h.i.+ver it troubled me, and I should have been more uneasy had I known how we were to keep that fateful tryst.

It was a glorious morning when, with a package strapped to the saddle, I rode down between the pine trunks to the crossing. The river flashed like burnished silver below, and the sunlight made colored haloes in the filmy spray that drifted about the black mouth of the canon, while rising and falling in thunderous cadence the voice of many waters rang forth from its gloomy depths. The package was a heavy one, for there were many domestic sundries as well as yards of dry-goods packed within it, and Harry a.s.sured me it had taken him a whole day to procure them, adding that he was doubtful even then whether he had satisfactorily filled the bill.

I had loitered some time on the hillside until I could see the party winding down the opposite slope. Then the forest hid them, and it appeared that, perhaps because the waters were high, they were not going straight to the usual ford, but intended first to send the ladies across in a canoe which lay lower down near a slacker portion of the rapid stream. The slope on my own side was steep, but, picking my way cautiously, I was not far above the river, which boiled in a succession of white-ridged rapids, when I saw Grace seat herself in the stern of the canoe, which Ormond thrust off until it was nearly afloat. Then he returned for her aunt, while Colonel Carrington and rancher Lawrence led the horses toward the somewhat risky ford up-stream. The river was swollen by melting snow, and it struck me that they would have some difficulty in crossing.

Then a hoa.r.s.e shout rang out, "The canoe's adrift!" followed by another from the Colonel, "Get hold of the paddle, Grace!--for your life paddle!"

It had all happened in a moment. Doubtless some slight movement on the girl's part had set the light Indian craft afloat, and for another second or two I stared aghast upon a scene that is indelibly impressed on my memory. There was Ormond scrambling madly among the boulders, tearing off his jacket as he ran, Colonel Carrington struggling with a startled horse, and his sister standing rigid and still, apparently horror-stricken, against the background of somber pines. Then forest and hillside melted away, and while my blood grew chill I saw only a slender white-robed figure in the stern of the canoe, which was sliding fast toward the head of the tossing rapid that raced in a mad seething into the canon.

Then I smote the horse, gripped the rein, and we were off at a flying gallop down the declivity. A branch lashed my forehead, sweeping my hat away; for an instant something warm dimmed my vision, and as I raised one hand to dash it away a cry that had a note of agony in it came ringing down the valley.

"Make for the eddy, Grace! For heaven's sake, paddle!"

How Caesar kept his footing I do not know. The gravel was rattling behind us, the trunks reeled by, and the rus.h.i.+ng water seemed flying upward toward me. Even now I do not think I had any definite plan, and it was only blind instinct that prompted me to head down-stream diagonally to cut off the approaching canoe; but I answered the Colonel's shout with an excited cry, and drove the horse headlong at a shelf of rock. I felt his hoofs slipping on its mossy covering, there was a strident clang of iron on stone, and then with a sudden splash we were in the torrent together.

Caesar must have felt the bottom beneath him a moment or two, for I had time to free my feet from the stirrups before he was swimming gallantly; but one cannot take a horse on board a birch-bark canoe, and the light sh.e.l.l shot down the green and white-streaked rush toward me even as I flung myself out of the saddle. And, staring forward with drawn-back lips and eyes wide open, I could see the white face in the stern.

Thanking Providence that I could swim well, I swung my left arm forward with hollowed palm, and shot away from the beast with head half-buried under the side-stroke's impetus, making a fierce effort to gain the center of the flow in time. Something long and dark swept past me. With an inarticulate gasp of triumph I seized it, managed to fall in head foremost over the stem, which in a tender craft of that beam is a difficult thing to do, and then, s.n.a.t.c.hing the second paddle, whirled it madly. I felt the stout redwood bend at every stroke, my lungs seemed bursting, and there was a mist before my eyes, but it was borne in on me that I had come too late, and that already no earthly power could s.n.a.t.c.h us from the canon.

Hemlock and boulder, stream-hammered reef and pine, flitted by, closing in on one another along the half-seen sh.o.r.e. The river frothed white about us in steep boiling ridges as it raced down the incline, and nearer and nearer ahead tossed the ghostly spray cloud that veiled the mouth of the chasm. As we lurched broadside to the rapid each steeper liquid upheaval broke into the canoe; for every foot I won sh.o.r.eward the stream swept us sideways two; and when, grasping the pole, I thrust against a submerged boulder with all my strength, the treacherous redwood snapped in half.

Then there was a bewildering roar, a blinding shower of spray, and we were out upon the short slide of gla.s.sy green water which divided the tail of the rapid from the mouth of the canon. As I flung away the broken pole and groped for the paddle I saw with eyes that were clouded by blood and sweat Grace raise her hand as though in a last farewell, and then as she faced round once more our glances met. She said no word. I could not have heard if she had, for all sound was swallowed up in one great pulsating diapason; but she afterward said that she felt impelled to look at me, and knew that I would turn my head. And so for an instant, there where the barriers of caste and wealth had melted away before the presence of death, our two souls met in a bond that should never be broken.

Now there are occasions when even the weakest seem endowed with a special strength, while a look of blind confidence from the woman he loves is capable of transforming almost any man, and I knew in the exaltation of that moment, for my own sake, I had no fear of death. If I could not save her, I felt it would be a good end to go down into the green depths attempting it.

Then the canoe lurched forward half its length clear of the water, a white haze eddied about us, the sunlight went out, and we were in the canon, shooting down the mad rush of a rapid toward eternity. I plied the paddle my hardest to keep the frail craft head on, that she might not roll over by sheering athwart the stream, not because I had any hope of escape, but that it seemed better to go under fighting. The work was severe enough, as, not having learned the back-feather under water, I must dip the blade on either side alternately, while each time that I dare turn my eyes backward a moment the sight of Grace kneeling with set white face in the stern further strengthened me. The pace grew a little easier as we drew out into a somewhat slacker flow, and I made s.h.i.+ft with an empty fruit-can to free the craft of water, until Grace spoke, and her words reached me brokenly through the deeper growling of the river:

"Do you think there is any chance of safety?"

"Yes," I answered stoutly, though it is probable my voice belied me. It was so strained I could hardly recognize it. "The canoe may keep afloat until we reach the other end, or perhaps we can find a bar to land on and climb up somewhere." Then I felt glad that my shoulders were turned toward her as she said:

"I am afraid it is a very small one. There is a fall and a whirlpool ahead, and no one could climb that awful precipice--look!"

The canoe was shooting onward through dim shadow very fast but more steadily, and raising my eyes from the dull green water before us--these craft are always paddled with one's face toward the bow--I looked about me hopelessly. In these days of easy travel there are doubtless many who have from a securely railed-off platform gazed down into the black depths of a Pacific Slope canon upon a river that seems a narrow thread in the great gulf below. These will have some idea of what I saw, but they may take the word of one who knows, which is easier than making the experiment, that such places look very much worse from the bottom. Those who have not may try to picture tremendous--and the word is used with its amplest significance--walls of slightly overhanging rock, through which aided by grinding boulders and scoring s.h.i.+ngle, the river has widened as well as deepened its channel a little every century, while between the white welter at their feet lies a breadth of troubled green where the stream flows heaped up, as it were, in the center.