Northwest! Part 11

"You imply he would sooner start for the bush with the Jardines?"

Stannard suggested with a smile.

"After all, it's not important, and I expect Jimmy will go where he wants," said Laura, and went up the veranda steps.

She thought she had baffled Stannard, but she was hurt. At the beginning, she knew her advice to Jimmy was good. When he was going the wrong way she had stopped him. Now, however, it looked as if her power was gone. She could see herself Jimmy's guide in Lancas.h.i.+re, but to guide him in the lonely bush was another thing.

IX

THE QUIET WOODS

A warm Chinook wind, blowing from the Pacific, carried the smell of the pines. The dark branches tossed and a languid murmur, like distant surf, rolled up the valley. Jimmy had pulled off his coat and his gray workman's s.h.i.+rt was open at the neck, for he liked to feel the breeze on his hot skin. He was splitting cedar for roof s.h.i.+ngles, but had stopped in order to sharpen his ax. Since he had not yet cut his leg, he thought his luck was good.

A few maples, beginning to turn crimson, broke the rows of somber pines.

In the foreground were chopped trunks, blackened by fire, ashes and white chips. A tent and a half-built house of notched logs occupied the middle of the small clearing. In the background, one saw high rocks, streaked at their dark tops by snow. Some of the snow was fresh, and Jimmy imagined the speed he had used was justified. Yet, so long as the Chinook blew, gentle Indian summer would brood over the valley.

Jimmy's skin was brown, his mouth was firm, and his look alert. His hands were blistered and his back was sore, but this was not important.

He could now pull a big saw through gummy logs and, as a rule, drive the s.h.i.+ning ax-head where he wanted it to go. A belt held his overalls tight at his waist; when he tilted back his head to get his breath his balance and pose were good.

A plume of aromatic smoke floated across the clearing and Okanagan Bob squatted by the fire. Bob's hair was black and straight and his eyes were narrow. His crouching pose was significant, because a white man sits. Bob's skin was white, but it looked as if some Indian blood ran in his veins. He was an accurate shot and a clever fisherman. Now he fried trout for breakfast and Jimmy wondered whether he would leave the fish long enough in the pan. As a rule, Bob did not cook things much.

"Somebody's coming," he remarked and began to eat. "Take your fish when you want. I've got to pull out."

For a minute or two Jimmy heard nothing, and then a faint beat of horse's feet stole across the woods. The noise got louder and by and by Margaret rode into the clearing. When Jimmy jumped for his jacket she smiled and the nervous cayuse plunged. In the bush, all goes quietly and abrupt movement means danger.

Margaret rode astride. Her dress was dull yellow and her leggings were fringed deerskin. At the hotel, Jimmy had approved her blue clothes, but he thought he liked her better in the bush. Somehow she harmonized with the straight trunks. It was not that she was finely built and beautiful; one got a hint of primitive calm and strength.

"Shall I hold the bridle?" Jimmy asked.

"I think not," said Margaret and soothed the horse. "Another time when you took the bridle I was forced to walk home and you got a kick."

"On the whole, I think my luck was good," Jimmy rejoined. "When I went to Kelshope, things, so to speak, began to move."

Margaret got down, took a pack from the saddle, and tied the horse to a tree. Bob got up from the fire, seized his rifle, and looked at Margaret.

"I'm going to get a deer," he said and vanished in the wood. The underbrush was thick, but they did not hear him go.

"When I was at the station the agent gave me your mail and some groceries," said Margaret. "My father allowed you were busy, and I'd better take the truck along."

Jimmy said, "Thank you," and gave her a thoughtful look. Margaret's voice was cultivated, but she talked like a bush girl. At the hotel she had not.

"I didn't order a fruit pie and a number of bannocks," he said when he opened the pack.

"Oh, well, I was baking, and I reckoned if Bob was cook, you wouldn't get much dessert. But have you eaten yet?"

Jimmy said he imagined breakfast was ready and Margaret went to the fire, glanced at the half-raw trout, and threw a black, doughy cake from a plate.

"A white man _cooks_ his food," she said meaningly. "Take a smoke while I fix something fit to eat."

Jimmy pushed two or three letters into his pocket and sat down on a cedar log. If Margaret meant to cook his breakfast, he imagined she would do so and he was satisfied to watch her. For one thing, she knew her job, and Jimmy liked to see all done properly. She did not bother him for things; she seemed to know where they were. After a time, she put the trout and some thin light cakes on a slab of bark, and Jimmy remarked that the fish were an appetizing golden brown.

"I expect you have not got breakfast, and I'll bring you a plate," he said.

"At a bush ranch the woman gets the plates."

"There's not much use in pretending the bush rules are yours," Jimmy rejoined. "Anyhow, I'll bring you all you want."

"Wash the plate, please," said Margaret. "I'd sooner you did not rub it with the towel."

Jimmy laughed. "You take things for granted. I'm not a complete bushman yet."

He cleaned the plates and knives, and Margaret studied him. Something of his carelessness and the hint of indulgence she had noted were gone. His face had got thin and his frank glance was steady. Although he laughed, his laugh was quiet. The bush was hardening him, and when she looked about she saw the progress he had made was good. Well, she knew Jimmy was not a loafer; after the cayuse kicked his leg he carried her heavy pack to the ranch.

"Now we can get to work," he said.

Margaret allowed him to put a trout and some hot flapjacks on her plate.

"After all, I like it when people bring me things," she remarked. "At Kelshope, when one wants a thing one goes for it. I reckon your friends ring a bell."

"Perhaps both plans have some drawbacks. Still I don't see why you bother to indicate that you do not ring bells."

"It looks as if you're pretty keen," said Margaret.

"Keener than you thought? Well, not long since I'd have admitted I was something of a fool. Anyhow, I rather think you know the Canadian cities."

"At Toronto I stopped at a cheap boarding-house. They rang bells for you. If you were not in right on time for meals, you went without. You didn't ask for the _menu_; you took what the waitress brought. Now you ought to be satisfied. I'm not curious about your job in the Old Country."

"I'm not at all reserved," Jimmy rejoined. "I occupied a desk at a cotton mill office, and wrote up lists of goods in a big book, until I couldn't stand for it. Then I quit."

Margaret weighed his statement and imagined he had used some reserve.

For a clerk at a cotton mill to tour about Canada with rich people was strange.

"You talk about the Old Country, although you stated you were altogether Canadian," Jimmy resumed.

"My father's a Scot. He came from the Border."

"Your name indicates it. The Jardines and two or three other clans ruled the Western Border, but were themselves a stubborn, unruly lot.

Your ancestors were famous. I know their haunts in Annandale."

"I reckon my father was a poacher," Margaret observed.

Jimmy laughed. "It's possible the others were something like that.

Anyhow, their main occupation was to drive off English cattle, but we won't bother--"

He stopped and mused. Sometimes, when he was at the cotton mill, he had gone for a holiday to the bleak Scottish moors. The country was romantic, but rather bleak than beautiful, and he had thought a touch of the old Mosstroopers' spirit marked their descendants. The men were big and their Scottish soberness hid a vein of reckless humor. They were keen sportsmen and bold poachers. When one studied them, one noted their stubbornness and something Jimmy thought was quiet pride. Margaret had got the puzzling quality; one marked her calm level glance and her rather haughty carriage. Although she was a bush rancher's daughter, Jimmy did not think he exaggerated much.