It was a bright day when Lisle took his leave of the Marples. They gave him a friendly farewell and when he turned away Bella Crestwick walked with him down the drive.
“I don’t care what they think; I couldn’t talk to you while they were all trying to say something nice,” she explained. “Still, to do them justice, I believe they meant it. We are sorry to part with you.”
“It’s soothing to feel that,” Lisle replied. “In many ways, I’m sorry to go. I’ve no doubt you’ll miss your brother after to-morrow.”
“Yes,” she said with unusual seriousness. “More than once during the last two years I felt that it would be a relief to let somebody else have the responsibility of looking after him, but now that the time has come I’m sorry he’s going. I can’t help remembering how often I lost my temper, and the mistakes I made.”
“You stuck to your task,” commended Lisle. “I dare say it was a hard one, almost beyond you now and then.”
He knew that he was not exaggerating. She was only a year older than the wilful lad, who must at times have driven her to despair. Yet she had never faltered in her efforts to restrain and control him; and had made a greater sacrifice for his sake than Lisle suspected, though in the light of a subsequent revelation of Gladwyne’s character she was thankful for this.
“Well,” she replied, “I suppose that one misses a load one has grown used to, and I feel very downcast. It’s hardly fair to pass Jim on to you—but I can trust you to take care of him.”
“You can trust the work and the country,” Lisle corrected her with a trace of grimness. “He’s not going out to be idle, as he’ll discover. There’s nothing like short commons and steady toil for taming any one. You’ll see the effect of my prescription when I send him back again.”
“He has physical pluck. I’m glad to remember it; and he has shown signs of steadying since he found Gladwyne out.”
Lisle looked at her searchingly.
“Since he found Gladwyne out?”
“Oh,” she answered, seeing that she had been incautious, “he rather idolized the man, and I suppose it was painful to discover by accident that he wasn’t quite all he thought him. Now, however, he has transferred his homage to you—I’m afraid Jim must always have somebody to prop him—but I’ve no misgivings.”
Lisle laughed.
“I’ve seldom had the time to get into mischief; I suppose that accounts for a good deal.”
They were nearing the lodge and she stopped and held out her hand.
“It’s hard to say good-by; you have helped me more than you’ll ever guess, and you won’t be forgotten.” Then as he held her hand with signs of embarrassment she laughed with something of her usual mocking manner and suddenly drew away. “Good-by,” she added. “I was rather daring once and I suppose you were shocked. I can’t repeat the rashness—it would mean more now.”
She walked back toward the house, and he went on. Half an hour later he met Millicent, who stopped to greet him.
“I was on my way to call on you for the last time,” he told her.
There was something in his voice that troubled her, and, though she had expected it, she shrank from the intimation of his departure.
“Then, will you come back with me?” she asked.
“If you’re not pressed for time, I’d rather walk across the moor, the way you once took me soon after I came. I’d like to look round the countryside again before I leave, though it will be a melancholy pleasure.”
For no very obvious reason, she hesitated. It was, however, hard to refuse his last request and she really wished to go.
“The views are unusually good,” she said, as they started on. “Wouldn’t Nasmyth have gone with you?”
“It wouldn’t have been the same,” he explained. “I’m storing up memories to take away with me and somehow Nasmyth is most clearly associated with Canada. When I think of him, it will be as sitting in camp beside a portage or holding the canoe paddle.”
“And you can’t picture my being occupied in that way?”
“No,” he answered gravely; “I associate you with England—with stately old houses, with well-cared-for woods and quiet valleys. There’s no doubt that your place is here.”
He spoke as if he were making an admission that was forced from him, and she endeavored to answer in a lighter manner.
“It’s the only one I’ve had an opportunity for trying.”
“But you love this place!”
“Yes,” she said; “I love it very well. Perhaps I am prejudiced, and I’ve only had a glimpse at other countries, but I feel that this is the most beautiful land in the world.”
He stopped and glanced round. From where they stood he could look out upon leagues of lonely brown moors running back into the distance under a cloudless sky. Beyond them the Scottish hills were softly penciled in delicate gray. There was a sense of space and vastness in the picture, but it was not that which spoke most plainly to him. Down on the far-spread low ground lay such white homesteads, built to stand for generations, as he had never seen in Canada; parks sprinkled with noble trees, amid which the gray walls of some ancient home peeped out; plantations made with loving care, field on field, fenced in with well-trimmed trimmed hedges.
It was all eloquent of order, security and long-established ease; a strong contrast to the rugged wilderness where, in the bush and on treeless prairie, men never relaxed their battle with nature. In many ways, his was a stern country; a land of unremitting toil from which one desisted only long enough to eat and sleep, and he was one of the workers. Mrs. Gladwyne had been right—it was no place for this delicately nurtured girl with her sensitiveness and artistic faculties.
“For those who can live as you live, it would be hard to find the equal of this part of England,” he said. “But I’m not sure you can keep it very much longer as it is.”
“Why?” she asked.
It was a relief to talk of matters of minor interest, for he dare not let his thoughts dwell too much on the subject that was nearest them.
“Well,” he replied, “there’s the economic pressure, for one thing; the growth of your cities; the demand for food. I see land lying almost idle that could be made productive at a very moderate outlay. Our people often give nearly as much as it’s worth here for no better soil.”
“But how do they make it pay?”
He laughed.
“The secret is that they expect very little—enough to eat, a shack they build with their own hands to sleep in—and they’re willing to work sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.”
“They can’t do so in winter.”
“The hours are shorter, but where the winter’s hardest—on the open middle prairie—the work’s more severe. There the little man spends a good deal of his time hauling home stove-wood or building-logs for new stables or barns. He has often to drive several leagues with the thermometer well below zero before he can find a bluff with large enough trees. In the Pacific Slope forests, where it’s warmer, work goes on much as usual. The bush rancher spends his days chopping big trees in the rain and his nights making odd things—furniture, wagon-poles, new doors for his outbuildings. What you would call necessary leisure is unknown.”
This was not exaggeration; but he spoke of it from a desire to support his resolution by emphasizing the sternest aspects of western life. It had others more alluring: there were men who dwelt more or less at their ease; but they were by no means numerous, and the toilers—in city office, lonely bush, or sawmill—were consumed by or driven into a feverish activity. As one of them, it was his manifest duty to leave this English girl in her sheltered surroundings. There was, however, one remote but alluring possibility that made this a little easier—he might, after all, win enough to surround her with some luxury and cultured friends in one of the cities of the Pacific coast. Though they differed from those in England, they were beautiful, with their vistas of snow-capped mountains and the sea.
“But you are not a farmer,” she objected.
“No; mining’s my vocation and it keeps me busy. In the city, I’m at work long before they think of opening their London offices, and it’s generally midnight before I’ve finished worrying engineers and contractors at their homes or hotels. In the wilds, we’re more or less continuously grappling with rock or treacherous gravel, or out on the prospecting trail, while the northern summer lasts; it’s then light most of the night. In the winter, we sometimes sleep in the snow, with the thermometer near the bottom of its register.”
Millicent shivered a little, wondering uneasily why he had taken the trouble to impress this upon her. It was, she thought, certainly not to show what he was capable of.
“Are you glad to go back, or do you dread it?” she asked.
“I don’t dread it—it’s my life, and things may be easier by and by. Still, I’m very loath to go.”
Millicent could believe that. His troubled expression confirmed it; and she was strangely pleased. She had never had a companion in whom she could have so much confidence, and she had already recognized that she was, in one sense of the word, growing fond of him. Indeed, she had begun to be curious about the feeling and to wonder whether it stopped quite short at liking.
“Well,” she told him, “I’m glad that you asked me to come with you. I think I was one of your first friends and I’m pleased that you should wish to spend part of your last day in my company.”
“You come first of all!”
“That’s flattering,” she smiled. “What about Nasmyth?”
“An unusually fine man, but he has his limits. You have none.”
“I’m not sure I quite understand you.”
“Then,” he explained seriously, “what I think I mean is this—you’re one of the people who somehow contrive to meet any call that is made on them. You would never sit down, helpless, in a trying situation; you’d find some way of getting over the difficulties. It’s a gift more useful than genius.”
“You’re rating me too highly,” she answered with some embarrassment. “You admitted that you thought my place was here—the inference was that I shouldn’t fit into a different one.”
“No,” he corrected her; “you’d adapt yourself to changed conditions; but that wouldn’t prevent your suffering in the process. Indeed, I think people of your kind often suffer more than the others.”
He was to some extent correct in his estimate of her, but she shrank from the direct personal application of his remarks.
“Aren’t the virtues you have described fairly common?” she asked. “I think that must be so, because they’re so necessary.”
“In a degree, I suppose they are. You see them, perhaps, most clearly in such lands as mine. The pioneer has a good deal against him—frost and floods, hard rock and sliding snow; he must face every discomfort, hunger and stinging cold. The prospector crawls through tangled forests, and packs his stores across snowy divides; shallow shafts cave in, rude dams are swept away. A man worked to exhaustion on the trail runs out of provisions and goes on, starving; he lames himself among the rocks, sets his teeth and limps ahead. I’ve thought the capacity to do so is humanity’s greatest attribute, but after all it’s not shown in its finest light battling with material things. When the moral stress comes, the man who would face the other often fails.”
“Yes,” she asserted; “there are barriers that can’t be stormed. Merely to acquiesce is the hardest thing of all, but in that lies the victory.”
“It’s a bitter one,” he answered moodily.
There was silence for a few minutes while they strolled on through the heather. Afterward, Millicent understood where his thoughts had led, but now she was chiefly conscious of a slight but perplexing resentment against the fact that he should discourse rather crude philosophy. Indeed, the feeling almost amounted to disappointment—it was their last walk, and though she did not know what she had expected from him, it was something different from this. Walking by her side, with his fine poise, his keen eyes that regarded her steadily when she spoke, and his resolute brown face, he appealed to her physically, and in other ways she approved of him. It was borne in upon her more clearly that she would miss him badly, and she suspected that he would not find it easy to part from her. In the meanwhile he recognized that she had, no doubt unconsciously, given him a hint—when the moral difficulties were unsurmountable one must quietly submit.
They stopped when they reached the highest strip of moor. The sun was low, the vast sweep of country beneath them was fading to neutral color, woods, low ridges, and river valleys losing their sharpness of contour as the light left them. A faint cold wind sighed among the heather, emphasizing the desolation of the moorland.
Millicent shivered.
“We’ll go down,” Lisle said quietly; “the brightness has gone. I’ve had a great time here—something to think of as long as I live—but now it’s over.”
“But you’ll come back some day?” she suggested.
“I may; I can’t tell,” he answered. “I’ve schemes in view, to be worked out in the North, that may make my return possible; but even then it couldn’t be quite the same. Things change; one mustn’t expect too much.”
His smile was a little forced; his mood was infectious, and an unusual melancholy seized upon Millicent as they moved down-hill across the long, sad-colored slopes of heather. Then they reached a bare wood where dead leaves that rustled in the rising wind lay in drifts among the withered fern and the slender birch trunks rose about them somberly. The light had almost gone, the gathering gloom reacted upon both of them, and there was in the girl’s mind a sense of something left unsaid. Once or twice she glanced at her companion; his face was graver than usual and he did not look at her.
It was quite dark when they walked down the dale beneath the leafless oaks, talking now with an effort about indifferent matters, until at last Millicent stopped at the gate of the drive to her house.
“Will you come in?” she asked.
“No; Nasmyth’s waiting. I’m glad you came with me, but I won’t say good-by. I’ll look forward to the journey we’re to make together through British Columbia.”
She held out her hand; in another moment he turned away, and she walked on to the house with a strange sense of depression.
It was snowing in the northern wilderness and the bitter air was filled with small, dry flakes, which whirled in filmy clouds athwart the red glow of a fire. A clump of boulders stood outlined beside a frozen river, and behind the boulders a growth of willows rose crusted with snow, while beyond them, barely distinguishable, were the stunted shapes of a few birches. So far the uncertain radiance reached when the fire leaped up, but outside it all was shut in by a dense curtain of falling snow.
It had been dark for some time, and Lisle was getting anxious as he lay, wrapped in a ragged skin coat, in a hollow beside a boulder. A straining tent stood near the fire, but the big stone afforded better shelter, and drawing hard upon his pipe, he listened eagerly. The effort to do so was unpleasant as well as somewhat risky, for he had to turn back the old fur cap from his tingling ears; and he shivered at every variation of the stinging blast. There was nothing to be heard except the soft swish of the snow as it swirled among the stones and the hollow rumble of the river pouring down a rapid beneath a rent bridge of ice.
The man had spent the early winter, when the snow facilitates traveling, in the auriferous regions of the North, arranging for the further development of the mineral properties under his control. That done, he had, returning some distance south, struck out again into the wilds to examine some alluvial claims in which he had been asked to take an interest. It was difficult to reach the first of them; and then he had spent several weeks in determined toil, cutting and hauling in wood to thaw out the frozen surface sufficiently to make investigations. Crestwick had accompanied him, but during the last few days he had gone down to a Hudson Bay post with the owners of the claim, who were returning satisfied with the arrangements made. His object was to obtain any letters that might have arrived, and Lisle, going on to look at another group of claims, had arranged to meet him where he had camped.
It would be difficult to miss the way, for it consisted of the frozen river, but Crestwick should have arrived early in the afternoon and Lisle felt uneasy. On the whole, the Canadian was satisfied with the conduct of his companion. Deprived during most of the time of any opportunity for dissipation, scantily fed, and forced to take his share in continuous labor, the lad’s better qualities had become manifest and he had responded pluckily to the demands on him. Abstinence and toil were already producing their refining effect. Still, he had not come back, and with the snow thickening, it was possible that he might not be able to keep to the comparatively plain track of the river. There was also the risk that by holding on too far when he saw the fire he might blunder in among the fissured ice at the foot of the rapid.
Rising at length, Lisle walked toward the dangerous spot, guiding himself by sound, for once he was out of the firelight there was nothing to be seen but a white driving cloud. He knew when he had reached the neighborhood of the rapid by the increased clamor of the stream, and he crept on until he decided that he was abreast of the pool below. The rapid was partly frozen, but the ice was fissured and piled up at the tail of it.
Lisle could not remember how long he waited, beating his stiffened hands and stumbling to and fro to keep his feet from freezing, but at last, though he could see nothing, he heard a crunching sound, and he called out sharply.
“I’ve got here!” came the answer. “Where shall I leave the ice? Seems to be an opening in front of me!”
It was difficult to hear through the clamor of the water and the crash of drifting ice; but Lisle caught the words and called again:
“Turn your back on the wind and walk straight ahead!”
He supposed that Crestwick was obeying him, but a few moments later he heard a second shout:
“Brought up by another big crack!”
The voice was hoarse and anxious, and Lisle, deciding that the lad was worn out by his journey and probably confused, bade him wait, and hurrying down-stream a little he moved out upon the frozen pool. He proceeded along it for a few minutes, calling to Crestwick and guiding himself by the answers; and then he stopped abruptly with a strip of black water close beneath his feet. On the other side was a ridge of rugged ice; but what lay beyond it he could not see.
“I’m in among a maze of cracks; can’t find any way out!” Crestwick cried, answering his hail.
Lisle reflected rapidly as he followed up the crevasse, which showed no sign of narrowing. The snow was thick, the bitter wind increasing, and a plunge into icy water might prove disastrous. It was obvious that he must extricate his companion as soon as possible, but the means of accomplishing it was not clear. Crestwick was somewhere on the wrong side of the crack, which seemed to lead right across the stream toward the confusion of broken ridges and hummocks which, as Lisle remembered, fringed the opposite bank. He must endeavor to find the place where the lad had got across; but this was difficult, for fresh breaches and ridges drove him back from the edge. Presently the chasm ended in a wide opening filled with an inky flood, and Lisle, turning back a yard or two, braced himself and jumped.
He made out a shapeless white object ahead, and coming to another crack he scrambled to the top of an ice-block and leaped again. There was a sharp crackle when he came down, the piece he alighted on rocked, and Crestwick staggered.
“Look out!” he cried. “It’s tilting under!”
Lisle saw water lapping in upon the snow, but it flowed back, and the cake he had detached impinged upon the rest with a crash.
“Come on!” he shouted. “The stream will jamb it fast!”
They reached the larger mass and moved across it, but Lisle, clutching his companion’s arm, bewildered and almost blinded by the snow, doubted if he were retracing his steps. He did not remember some of the ridges and ragged blocks over which they stumbled, and the smaller rents seemed more numerous. It was evident that Crestwick was badly worn out and they must endeavor to reach the bank with as little delay as possible.
At last they came to the broad crevasse, farther up the stream, and Lisle turned to Crestwick.
“Better take off your skin-coat. You’ll have to jump.”
“I can’t,” said the other dejectedly. “It’s not nerve—the thing’s clean beyond me.”
His slack pose—for he was dimly visible amid the haze of driving snow—bore out his words. The long march he had made had brought him to the verge of exhaustion; his overtaxed muscles would respond to no further call on them. For a moment or two Lisle stood gazing at the dark water in the gap.
“Then we’ll look for a narrower place,” he decided. “Where did you get across?”
“I don’t know. Don’t remember this split, but the ice was working under me. Perhaps the snow had covered it and now it’s fallen in.”
They scrambled forward, following the crevasse, but could find no means of passing it and now and then the ice trembled ominously. At last, when the opposite side projected a little, Lisle suddenly sprang out from the edge and alighted safely.
“It’s easy!” he called, stripping off his long skin coat and flinging one end of it across the chasm to Crestwick. “Get hold and face the jump!”
It was not a time for hesitation; the exhausted lad dare not contemplate the gap, lest his courage fail him, and nerving himself for an effort, he leaped. Striking the edge on the other side, he plunged forward as Lisle dragged at the coat, and then rolled over in the snow. He was up in a moment, gasping hard, almost astonished to find himself in security, and Lisle led him back to the snow-covered shingle.
“It strikes me as fortunate that I came to look for you,” he observed. “You’d probably have ended by walking into the river.”
“Thanks,” said Crestwick simply. “It isn’t the first hole you’ve pulled me out of.”
They reached the camp and the lad, shaking the snow off his furs, sat down wearily on a few branches laid close to the sheltering boulder, while Lisle took a frying-pan and kettle off the fire, and afterward filled his pipe again and watched his companion while he ate. Crestwick had changed since he left England; his face was thinner, and the hint of sensuality and empty self-assurance had faded out of it. His eyes were less bold, but they were steadier; and, sitting in the firelight, clad in dilapidated furs, he looked somehow more refined than he had done in evening dress in Marple’s billiard-room. When he spoke, as he did at intervals, the confident tone which had once characterized him was no longer evident. He had learned to place a juster estimate upon his value in the icy North.
“I was uncommonly glad to see the fire,” he said at length. “Another mile or two would have beaten me; though I spent nearly twice as long in coming up from the Forks as the prospectors said it would take. I was going light, too.”
“They’ve been doing this kind of thing most of their lives. You couldn’t expect to equal them. Where did you sleep last night?”
“In some withered stuff among a clump of willows; I scraped the snow off it. That is, I lay down there, but as the fire wouldn’t burn well, I don’t think I got much rest. Part of the time I wondered what I was staying in this country for. I didn’t seem to find any sensible answer.”
“You could get out of it when the freighters go down with the dogs and sledges,” Lisle suggested. “It would be a good deal more comfortable at Marple’s, for instance.”
“Do you want to get rid of me? I suppose I’m not much help.”
“Oh, no!” Lisle assured him. “It only struck me that you might find the novelty of the experience wearing off. Besides, you’re improving; in a year or two you’ll make quite a reliable prospector’s packer.”
“That’s something,” replied Crestwick, grinning. “Not long ago I thought I’d make a sportsman; one of Gladwyne’s kind. The ambition doesn’t so much appeal to me now. But I want to be rather more than a looker-on. Can’t you let me put something into one of these claims?”
“Not a cent! In the first place, you’d have some trouble in raising the money; in the second, I might be accused of playing Batley’s game.”
“The last’s ridiculous. But if I’m not to do anything, it brings me back to the question—why am I staying here?”
“I can’t tell you that. I’ll only suggest that if you hold out until you come into your property, you’ll go back much more fit in several ways to look after it. I should imagine you’d find less occasion to emulate people like Batley and Gladwyne then. Of course, I don’t know if that’s worth waiting for.”
It was the nearest approach to seriousness he considered advisable, for precept was obnoxious to him and apt to be resented by his companion.
“Now,” he added, “what about the mail?”
Crestwick produced a packet of letters which he had not opened yet and Lisle glanced at two business communications. The boulder kept off most of the snow, and the glare of the snapping branches, rising and falling with the gusts, supplied sufficient light.
“Mine’s from Bella; there’s news in it,” Crestwick remarked. “She says Carew—I don’t think you’ve seen him—is anxious to marry her, and if she’s convinced that I’m getting on satisfactorily, she’ll probably agree. He’s—I’m quoting—about as good as she’s likely to get; that’s Bella all over.”
“What’s he like?” Lisle asked with interest.
“To tell the truth, in one way I think she’s right—the man’s straight; not the Marple crowd’s style. In fact, I found him decidedly stand-offish, though I’ll own there might have been a reason for that. Anyhow, I’m glad; she might have done a good deal worse. I suppose you won’t mind giving me a testimonial that will set her doubts at rest?”
“You shall have it. Since the man’s a good one, I’m nearly as glad as you are. I’ve a strong respect for your sister; she stood by you pluckily.”
“That’s true,” asserted Crestwick. “I was a bit of an imbecile, and she’s really hard to beat. She says if the life here’s too tough for me I’m to come back and live with them. That’s considerate, because in a way she can’t want me, though I haven’t the least doubt she’d make Carew put up with my company. It decides the question—I’m not going.”
“A little while ago you’d have taken Carew’s delight for granted, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m beginning to see things,” Crestwick answered with a wave of his hand. Then he paused and looked confused. “After all, though she says I’m to give you the message, Bella really goes too far now and then.”
“She doesn’t always mean it. You may as well obey her.”
“It’s this—if it’s any consolation, she has no intention of forgetting you, and Arthur—that’s the fellow’s name—is anxious to make your acquaintance. She says there are men who’re not so unresponsive as you are, but Arthur has never been into the North to get frozen.”
Lisle laughed—it was so characteristic of Bella.
“Here’s something else,” Crestwick proceeded; “about Miss Gladwyne. Bella thinks you’d be interested to hear that there’s a prospect of—”
“Go on!” cried Lisle, dropping his pipe.
“I can’t see,” said Crestwick. “You might stir the fire.”
Lisle threw on some fresh wood and poked the fire savagely with a branch, and the lad continued, reading with difficulty while the pungent smoke obscured the light.
“It seems that she saw Gladwyne and his mother and Millicent together in town, and she afterward spent a week with Flo Marple at somebody’s house. Flo told her that it looks as if the long-deferred arrangement was to be brought about at last.” He laid down the letter. “If that means she’s to marry Gladwyne, it ought to be prevented!”
They looked at each other curiously, and Lisle, struggling to command himself, noticed the lad’s strained expression.
“Why?” he asked with significant shortness.
Crestwick seemed on the verge of some vehement outbreak and Lisle saw that it was with an effort he refrained.
“Oh, well,” he answered, “the man’s not half good enough. He’s a dangerous rotter.”
“Dangerous?”
“Yes,” returned Crestwick dryly; “I think that describes it.”
There was an impressive silence, while each wondered how far he might have betrayed himself. Then Lisle spoke.
“Read the rest of the letter. See if Bella says anything further.”
“No announcement made,” Crestwick informed him a little later. “All the same, Flo’s satisfied that the engagement will be made known before long.” He looked up at Lisle with uncertainty and anger in his face. “It almost makes me forget Bella’s other news. What can be done?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Don’t fence!” said Crestwick. “I’m not smart at it. Don’t you know a reason why Miss Gladwyne shouldn’t marry the fellow?”
“Yes. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Crestwick. “I can only say that the match ought to be broken off. It isn’t to be contemplated!”
“Well,” Lisle responded with forced quietness, “if it’s any relief to you, I’ll write to Nasmyth the first chance I get, asking what he’s heard. Now we’ll drop the subject. Is there anything else of general interest in your letter?”
“Bella says her wedding won’t be until the early summer and she’s thinking of making Carew bring her out to Banff or Glacier—he came out shooting or climbing once before. Then she’ll endeavor to look us up.”
He lighted his pipe and they sat in silence for a while. Then Crestwick rose and bringing a blanket from the tent wrapped it about him and lay down in the lee of the boulder near the fire. A few minutes later he was sound asleep; but Lisle sat long awake, thinking hard, while the snow drove by above him.
When Crestwick awakened, very cold, and cramped, a little before daylight the next morning, it was still snowing, but Lisle was up and busy preparing breakfast.
“That looks like marching; I thought we were going to lie off to-day,” observed the lad.
“How do you feel?” Lisle inquired.
“Horribly stiff; but that’s the worst. Why are you going on?”
“Because the freighters should leave the Hudson Bay post to-morrow with their dog-teams. It’s the only chance of sending out a letter I may get for a long while, and I want to write to Nasmyth.”
Crestwick shivered, glancing disconsolately at the snow; he shrank from the prospect of a two days’ hurried march. Had Lisle suggested this when he first came out, the lad would have rebelled, but by degrees the stern discipline of the wilds had had its effect on him. He was learning that the weariness of the flesh must be disregarded when it is necessary that anything shall be done.
“Oh, well,” he acquiesced, “I’ll try to make it. If I can’t, you’ll have to drop me where there’s some shelter.”
He ate the best possible breakfast, for as wood was scarce in parts of the country, and making a fire difficult, it was very uncertain when he would get another meal. Then he slipped the pack-straps over his stiff shoulders, and got ready to start with a burden he did not think he would have been capable of carrying for a couple of hours when he left England.
“Now we’ll pull out,” he said. “But wait a moment: I’d better look for a dry place to put this paper currency.”
“Where did you get it? You told me at the last settlement that you had hardly a dollar left.”
Crestwick grinned.
“Oh, some of the boys offered to teach me a little game they were playing when we thawed out that claim. I didn’t find it difficult, though I must own that I had very good luck. It was three or four months since I’d touched a card, and there’s a risk of reaction in too drastic reform. Anyhow, I’m glad I saw that game; one fellow had a way of handling trumps that almost took me in. If I can remember, it should come in useful.”
Lisle made no comment; restraint, he thought, was likely to prove more effective if it were not continually exercised. They started and for several hours plodded up the white highway of the river, leaving it only for a while when the ice grew fissured where the current ran more swiftly. White hills rose above them, relieved here and there by a somber clump of cedars or leafless willows and birches in a ravine. The snow crunched beneath their feet, and scattered in a fine white powder when they broke the crust; more of it fell at intervals, but blew away again; and they held on with a nipping wind in their faces and a low gray sky hanging over them.
Lisle, however, noticed little; he pushed forward with a steady and apparently tireless stride, thinking bitterly. Since his return to Canada, his mind had dwelt more or less continuously on Millicent. He recognized that in leaving her with his regard for her undeclared he had been sustained by the possibility that he might by determined effort achieve such a success as would enable him to return and in claiming her to offer most of the amenities of life to which she had been accustomed. Though it had not been easy, he had to some extent accomplished this. On reaching Victoria, he had found his business associates considering one or two bold and risky schemes for the extension of their mining interests, which he had carried out in the face of many difficulties. The new claims he had taken over promised a favorable yield upon development; he had arranged for the more profitable working of others by the aid of costly plant; and his affairs were generally prospering.
Then, when he was satisfied with the result of his exertions, Crestwick’s news had struck him a crushing blow. He was wholly unprepared for it. Nasmyth had spoken of a match between Millicent and Gladwyne as probable, but the latter had devoted himself to Bella, who had openly encouraged him. The change in the girl’s demeanor had escaped Lisle’s notice, because he had been kept indoors by his injury. Now the success he had attained counted for almost nothing; he had nobody to share it with.
The subject, however, had another aspect; he could have borne the shock better had Millicent yielded to a worthy suitor, but it was unthinkable that she should marry Gladwyne. She must be saved from that at any cost, though he thought her restored liberty would promise nothing to him. Even if her attachment to Gladwyne were free from passion, as Nasmyth had hinted, she must cherish some degree of affection and regard for the man. His desertion of her brother could not be forgiven, but the revelation of his baseness would not incline her favorably toward the person who made it, as it would seem to be merely for the purpose of separating her from him.
Lisle set his lips as he looked back on what he now considered his weakness in withholding the story of Gladwyne’s treachery. Had he declared it at the beginning, Mrs. Gladwyne would have suffered no more than she must do, and it would have saved Millicent and himself from the pain that must fall upon them. He bitterly regretted that he had, for once, departed from his usual habit of simply and resolutely carrying out an obvious task without counting the cost. Still, he could write to Nasmyth, and to do that he must reach the Hudson Bay post on the morrow. He trudged on over the snow at a pace that kept Crestwick breathless.
The bitter wind chilled them through in spite of their exertion, and it had increased by noon, when Lisle halted for a minute or two to look about him.
They were in the bottom of a valley walled in by barren hills; the bank of the frozen river was marked out by snow-covered stones, but none of them was large enough to rest behind, and one could not face the wind, motionless, in the open. While he stood, a stinging icy powder lashed his cheeks, and his hands grew stiff in their mittens.
“There’s not even a gulch we could sit down in,” he said. “We’ll have to go on; and I’m not sorry, for one reason. There’s not much time to spare.”
Crestwick’s eyes were smarting from the white glare; having started when weary from a previous journey, his legs and shoulders ached; but he had no choice between freezing and keeping himself slightly warm by steady walking. It would, he knew, be harder by and by, when his strength began to fail and the heat died out of his exhausted body.
“We’ll have to find a shelter for the tent by nightfall, or dig a snowpit where there’s some wood,” he declared. “I’ll try to hold out.”
They proceeded and the afternoon’s march tried him severely. Aching all over, breathing hard when they stumbled among the stones to skirt some half-frozen rapid, he labored on, regretting the comforts he had abandoned in England and yet not wholly sorry that he had done so. His moral fiber was toughening, for after all his faults were largely the result of circumstances and environment. Of no great intelligence, and imperfectly taught, he had been neglected by his penurious father who had been engaged in building up his commercial prosperity; his mother had died when he was young.
One of his marked failings was an inability to estimate the true value of things. He possessed something of the spirit of adventure and a desire to escape from the drab monotony of his early life, but these found expression in betting on the exploits of others on the football field and the turf, a haunting of the music-halls, and the cultivation of acquaintances on the lowest rung of the dramatic profession. All this offered him some glimpses of what he did not then perceive was merely sham romance. Later when, on the death of his father, wealth had opened a wider field, deceived by surface appearances, he had made the same mistake, selecting wrong models and then chiefly copying their failings. Even his rather generous enthusiasm for those whom he admired had led him farther into error.
Now, however, his eyes had been partly opened. Thrown among men who pretended nothing, in a land where pretense is generally useless, he was learning to depreciate much that he had admired. Called upon to make the true adventure he had blindly sought for, he found that little counted except the elemental qualities of courage and steadfastness. Dear life was the stake in this game, and the prizes were greater things than a repute for cheap gallantry, and pieces of money; they were the subjugation of rock and river, the conversion of the wilderness to the use of man. Crestwick was growing in the light he gained, and in proof of it he stumbled forward, scourged by driving snow, throughout the bitter afternoon, although before the end of it he could scarcely lift his weary feet.
It was getting dark, when they found a few cedars clustered in the shelter of a crag, and Lisle set to work hewing off the lower branches and cutting knots of the resinous wood. Crestwick could not rouse himself to assist, and when the fire was kindled he lay beside it, shivering miserably.
“There’s the kettle to be filled,” suggested Lisle. “You could break the ice where the stream’s faster among those stones; we’d boil water quicker than we’d melt down snow.”
Crestwick got up with an effort that cost him a good deal and stumbled away from the fire. Then a gust of wind met him, enveloping him in snow-dust and taking the power of motion momentarily away. He shook beneath his furs in the biting cold. Still, the river was near, and he moved on another few yards, when the kettle slipped from his stiffened hands and rolled down a steep slope. He stopped, wondering stupidly whether he could get down to recover it.
“Never mind; come back!” Lisle called to him. “I’ll go for the thing.”
The lad turned at the summons and sank down again beside the fire.
“I think I’m done,” he said wearily. “I may feel a little more fit in the morning.”
Lisle filled the kettle and prepared supper, and after eating voraciously, Crestwick lay down in the tent. It was in comparative shelter, but the frost grew more severe and the icy wind, eddying in behind the rock, threatened to overturn the frail structure every now and then. He tried to smoke, but found no comfort in it after he had with difficulty lighted his pipe; he did not feel inclined to talk, and it was a relief to him when Lisle sank into slumber.
Crestwick long remembered that night. His feet and hands tingled painfully with the cold, the branches he lay upon found out the sorest parts of his aching body, and he would have risen and walked up and down in the lee of the rock had he felt capable of the exertion, but he was doubtful whether he could even get upon his feet. At times thick smoke crept into the tent, and though it set him to coughing it was really a welcome change in his distressing sensations. He was utterly exhausted, but he shivered too much to sleep.
At last, a little while before daybreak, Lisle got up and strode away to the river after stirring the fire, and then, most cruel thing of all, the lad became sensible of a soothing drowsiness when it was too late for him to indulge in it. For a few moments he struggled hard, and then blissfully yielded. He was awakened by his companion, who was shaking him as he laid a plate and pannikin at his feet.
“We must be off in a few minutes,” he announced.
Crestwick raised himself with one hand and blinked.
“I don’t know whether I can manage it.”
“Then,” responded Lisle, hiding his compassion, “you’ll have to decide which of two things you’ll do—you can stay here until I come back, or you can take the trail with me. I must go on.”
Crestwick shrank from the painful choice. He did not think that he could walk; but to prolong the experience of the previous night for another twenty-four hours or more seemed even worse. He ate his breakfast; and then with a tense effort he got upon his feet and slipped the straps of the pack over his shoulders. Moving unevenly, he set off, lest he should yield to his weariness and sink down again.
“Come on!” he called back to Lisle.
He sometimes wondered afterward how he endured throughout the day. He was half dazed; he blundered forward, numbed in body, with his mind too dulled to be conscious of more than a despairing dejection. As he scarcely expected to reach the post, it did not matter how soon he fell. Yet, by instinctive effort stronger than conscious volition, the struggle for life continued; and Lisle’s keen anxiety concerning him diminished as the hours went by. Every step brought them nearer warmth and shelter, and made it more possible that help could be obtained if the lad collapsed. That was the only course that would be available because they were now crossing a lofty wind-swept elevation bare of timber.
It was afternoon when they entered a long valley, and Lisle, grasping Crestwick’s arm, partly supported him as they stumbled down the steep descent. Stunted trees straggled up toward them as they pushed on down the hollow, and Lisle surmised that the journey was almost over. That was fortunate, for he had some trouble in keeping his companion upon his feet. At length a faint howl rose from ahead and Lisle stopped and listened intently. The sound was repeated more plainly, and was followed by a confused snarling, the clamor of quarreling dogs.
“Malamutes; the freighters can’t have started yet with their sledges,” he said to Crestwick, who was holding on to him. “I don’t think they can be more than half a mile off.”
“I’ll manage that somehow,” replied the lad.
They went on through thickening timber, until at last a log house came into sight. In front of it stood two sledges, and a pack of snapping, snarling dogs were scuffling in the snow. Lisle was devoutly thankful when he opened the door and helped the lad into a log-walled room where four men, two of whom wore furs, were talking. The air was dry and strongly heated, besides being heavy with tobacco smoke and Crestwick sank limply into a chair. Gasping hard, he leaned forward, as if unable to hold himself upright; but Lisle was not alarmed: he had suffered at times, when exhausted, from the reaction that follows the change from the bitter cold outside to the stuffiness of a stove-heated room.
“Played out; I’d some trouble to get him along,” he explained to the men. “We’re going on to the claims at the gulch to-morrow.” Then he addressed the two in furs: “I guess you’ll take me out a letter?”
“Why, of course; but you’ll have to hustle,” said one of them, and Lisle turned to a man in a deerskin jacket whom he took for the agent.
“Can you give me some paper?”
“Sure! Sit down right here.”
It was not easy to write with stiffened fingers or to collect his thoughts with his head swimming from the change of temperature, but he informed Nasmyth briefly of what he had heard and asked how much truth there was in it. He added that he would have started for England forthwith, only that he could not be sure that this was necessary, and to leave his work unfinished might jeopardize the interests of people who had staked a good deal of money on the success of his schemes. Nevertheless he would come at once, if Nasmyth considered the match likely to be brought about and would cable him at Victoria, from whence a message would reach him. In the meanwhile, Nasmyth could make such use of their knowledge of Gladwyne’s treachery as he thought judicious.
Shortly after he had written the letter the two men in furs set out, and when the sound of their departure had died away the agent addressed his guests.
“I’ll fix you some supper; you look as if you needed it. Rustle round, Larry, and get the frying-pan on.”
They ate an excellent meal and shortly afterward Crestwick crawled into a wooden bunk, where he reveled in the unusual warmth and the softness of a mattress filled with swamp-hay. He had never lain down to rest in England with the delicious sense of physical comfort that now crept over his worn-out body.