The Lure of the North Part 29

They stayed three days at the mine, while their outfit was got ready; and when Drummond was not at work he followed Agatha about. He said he liked the woods, spoke of his employers with frank appreciation, and declared that he was grateful because she had got him his post. Besides this, he made no secret of a humble devotion to herself that she sometimes found embarra.s.sing and sometimes amusing. On the evening before they left the mine, he joined the group outside the shack.

"Well," said Scott, rather dryly, "what do you want?"

"Miss Strange pulls out for the North to-morrow, and if she'll take me I'm going along."

"Wait a moment," Scott said to Agatha, and then asked Drummond: "Why do you want to go?"

"I mean to get even with Stormont; and I want to put Miss Strange as wise as I can."

"Then we are to understand you expect nothing for the job?"

Drummond's black eyes sparkled. "You're my boss, so far, but I won't stand for being guyed. It's not _your_ money I'm after."

"Perhaps the rejoinder's justifiable," Father Lucien remarked, smiling; and Drummond turned to Agatha with a touch of dignity.

"I meant to make my pile by selling the ore to somebody, but you treated me like a white man, and I guess the lode belongs to you. Well, if I help you get rich and you want to give me something, I won't refuse, but I'm not out for money. Say, you'll let me go?"

"Can you help?" Scott interrupted. "If you can, it looks as if you had kept something back when you made the other deal."

Drummond grinned. "I kept something back from Stormont; when I put him wise I put him off the track. But I'm playing straight with Miss Strange and Thirlwell. You can bet on me!"

"Then we'll take you," said Agatha, with a deprecatory glance at Thirlwell.

"You're not going to be sorry about it," Drummond declared, and when he went away Agatha turned to Father Lucien.

"It's your business to judge men's character: do you think I have done well?"

"I imagine the lad will make good. He has two incentives: he likes you, and hates your adversary."

"Ah," said Agatha, smiling, "I wonder which is the stronger!"

Father Lucien spread out his hands and his eyes twinkled. "I am a priest, Miss Strange, and must admit that I cannot tell. You have won the young man's confidence; but his is a primitive nature, and hate counts for much."

"You are an honest man," said Agatha. "After all, the truth is better than compliments."

The party broke up soon afterwards, and early next morning Agatha left the mine with Thirlwell, Drummond, and a white rock-borer as well as the half-breed packers. They poled up the Shadow for some distance, and then followed a small creek, tracking the canoes, which were heavily loaded.

Indeed, when they carried the freight by relays across the portages, Agatha was surprised to note the quant.i.ty of tools and stores. Since the cost of transport made such things dear, it looked as if Thirlwell had made her money go a long way.

As they pushed on the country got wilder. The rocks were more numerous, the trees smaller, and in places they crossed wide belts where fires had raged. The flames had burned off the branches, but left the trunks, and the long rows of rampikes sprang from the new brush, s.h.i.+ning a curious silver-gray where they caught the light. The mode of travel, however, did not change. Sometimes they paddled up sparkling lakes, and sometimes dragged the canoes over ledges and gravel-beds in shallow creeks until the water shrunk and they made a laborious portage across a rocky height.

The journey was made as much by land as water, and at first Agatha wondered that the men were capable of such toil, but by degrees she found that she could carry more than she had thought, and laughing at Thirlwell's protests, often struggled through the brush with a heavy load. The hot suns.h.i.+ne that lasted so long, and the freshness that followed when the shadows deepened, calmed and strengthened her. She felt braced in mind and body; her doubts and impatience had gone. She was quietly confident that they would find the ore.

But they did not find it, and at length the time Agatha had allowed herself came to an end. It was possible that she had already lost her post at the school, but if not and she wanted to keep it, she must return at once.

She did not, however, mean to give up the search while their food held out and there was no shortage yet, perhaps because the half-breeds often went fis.h.i.+ng and gathered wild berries. Then one hot day, when they nooned beside a s.h.i.+ning lake and she sat in the shade of a boulder, she heard the men talking.

"The summer she is good," a _Metis_ remarked. "Me, I lak' better make the prospect than the freight. _Chercher l'argent, c'est le bo' jeu!_"

"We haven't struck much argent yet," said the white miner. "I wonder what the boss thinks and guess he's up against something. Walked past at an awkward piece on the last portage as if he didn't see me, with his forehead wrinkled up. Seen him look like that when he reckoned the roof was coming down on us."

Agatha's curiosity was excited, because she thought she had noted a subtle difference in Thirlwell's manner. There was a hint of reserve, and sometimes he looked disturbed. Then Drummond interrupted his companion.

"You can't tell what the boss thinks when he doesn't want, and we're certainly going to find the lode."

"I'd like to see you strike it all right, because if you don't, you're going to be some dollars out," the miner replied. "Don't know who's paying for this outfit, but I'd put it pretty high."

"What d'you reckon it cost?" Drummond asked.

The miner made a calculation and Agatha listened with strained interest as he enumerated the different items.

"Well," said Drummond, "I can't value the tools and powder, but allowing for transport, you've got the stores nearly right. Anyhow, I'm going swimming. If Pierre will give me ten yards, I'll race him to the island."

They went away and Agatha sat still with a hot face. She had trusted Thirlwell and he had deceived her; her money had soon been exhausted and the journey was now being made at his expense. She felt as if she had been robbed of something to which she had a sacred right; she had let a stranger undertake the task that was peculiarly hers. Then she had been cheated so easily. Thirlwell must think her a fool, or perhaps that she was willing to be deceived.

Getting calmer, she admitted that his object was good. He wanted to help, but it was unthinkable that she should trade upon his generosity.

She resolved to talk to him about it, but he had gone into the bush to look for the best line across the neck between them and another lake.

When he came back the men were unloading the canoes and he occupied himself with making up the packs.

They had camped and eaten supper before her opportunity came, and then as they sat by the water's edge she told him what she had heard. He listened quietly until she asked: "Was the man's calculation correct?"

"Nearly so. He was rather above the mark."

"Then I am in your debt?"

"Does that hurt?"

"Yes," said Agatha, with some hesitation, "in a way, it hurts very much.

I don't mean that it's embarra.s.sing to take your help, though it _is_ embarra.s.sing. You see, I felt I must find the lode myself; it's my duty, and you have taken away the satisfaction I might have felt. Besides, you cheated me."

Thirlwell was silent for a few moments, and then said: "I'm sorry you find it hard to let me help, but unless I had done so you couldn't have gone far."

"You should have been frank and let me wait."

"For another year? The North is no place for a white woman after the rivers freeze."

Agatha said nothing. She had not thought about this, and it would have been very hard to wait until summer came again.

"Well," he resumed, "I cheated you, because I could see no other plan. I think you have waited too long. If you had gone on thinking about nothing but the lode, it would have done you harm."

"Did it harm my father?"

"Yes," said Thirlwell quietly, and Agatha dared ask nothing more.

Besides she knew that he would not tell her much.

"Now," he went on, "I have owned my fault; but you're rather taking it for granted that my object was altogether unselfish. After all, the law only gives you so much frontage on the vein, and there's nothing to prevent my staking off a claim on the rest."

"That is so," said Agatha. "But the paper states that my father claimed the edge of the cliff, where, for a time, the ore could be easily worked. As your block would lie farther back, you would have to sink a shaft and drive a tunnel. This would cost you much."

"The cost wouldn't matter if the ore was rich. I could get all the capital I wanted."