The thaw came early that year, and the latter snow had been light, while steady dry weather followed it, and there were times when I felt that I should have given several years of my life for rain. It came, and, though there was not much of it, as if by magic tender grain stood a handbreadth above the black loam, while I watched it lengthen daily with my heart in my eyes, and I grew feverishly anxious about the weather. Many things depended on the success of that crop. Then suddenly it was summer, the hottest summer for ten seasons, our neighbors said, and I wondered how we would manage to cut hay for our own beasts, and the teams we had purchased conditionally, because long grass was scanty. Assistance was equally scarce, for, seeing us reach out toward prosperity, our friends evidently considered that we were now well able to help ourselves.

It was done somehow, though often for a week together we worked all day and most of the night, until there was only an hour or two left before the dawn, and I lay wide awake, too overstrung and fatigued to sleep. Once, too, in the burning heat of noon I fell from the wagon in a state of limp collapse, and there were occasions when Harry, with a paler color than usual, lay for long spaces gasping in the shade. We could spare little time for cooking, or a tedious journey to bring in provisions, so when one thing ran out we made shift with the rest. Still, we observed Sunday, and once Harry laughed as he said: "I'm thankful there is a Fourth Commandment, for without it we should have caved in utterly. Do you know we've been living on potatoes, tea, and porridge every meal for the last ten days? It's doubtful whether we can hold out until harvest, and you'll remember it's then that the pace grows killing."

For the first time I noticed that his face was very thin under the sun-burn, and perhaps he read my thoughts, for he laughed.

"We have taken on too big a contract, Ralph," he said, "but once in we'll carry it through. Still, I wish I had been born with the frame of a bullock, like you."

I lay in a hide chair ten hours together that Sunday, only moving to light the stove for Harry, or to consume another pint of strong green tea, which is generally our sole indulgence on the prairie. It might not, however, have suited fastidious palates, because the little squirrel-like gophers which abounded everywhere, burrowing near by, fell into the well by scores, and we had no leisure to fish them out. Neither is there any mistaking the flavor of gopher extract. Meantime it grew hotter and drier, and I had to admit to myself that the crop might have been better, while Harry, to hide his misgivings, talked cheerfully about higher prices, until at last the crisis came.

I awoke one morning with an unusual feeling of chilliness, sprang upright, and saw that the first rays of the red sun scintillated upon something that was not dew among the grass. With a cry I strode over to Harry's berth. Even half-asleep he could read the fear in my face.

"What is it?" he asked.

I scarcely knew my own voice as I answered hoarsely: "Frost!"

We ran out half-dressed, and when we stood by the edge of the tall wheat, which was already turning yellow, we knew that the destroyer had breathed upon our grain, and that every stately head contained its percentage of shriveled berries. Still, it might yet sell under a lower grading—if there were no more frost. But the frost came twice again—and on the third sunrise I stood staring across the blighted crop with despairing eyes, while my hands would tremble in spite of my will. Few men had labored as Harry and I had done; indeed, it was often only the hope of winning Grace Carrington that sustained me, while now I was poorer far than when first I landed in Canada. Neither dare I contemplate what the result of my folly would be to Harry. But Harry, who seldom thought of himself, laid his hand affectionately on my shoulder.

"Poor old Ralph!" he said. "Well, we did our best, and there's room for us somewhere in this wide country. I suppose it is—hopeless—absolutely?"

"Quite!" I answered, trying to steady my voice. "We can leave it with a clear conscience to the gophers. However, we might earn a little with the teams to feed us through the winter, and strike out next spring for British Columbia. The new railroad people are open to let track-grading contracts, you know. Lend me your double-barrel; I'm in no mood for talking, and an all-day tramp after prairie-chicken may help to steady me."

I took down the old weapon—it was a muzzle-loader—and called our little English terrier Grip. He was rather a nuisance than otherwise when stalking prairie-fowl, but he was an affectionate beast, and I felt glad of his company. Then for several hours I strode on across the prairie, hardly seeing the clattering coveys at which Grip barked furiously, and I might have wandered on until midnight but that when skirting a grove of willows he must most foolishly follow the trail of a coyote. Now, the prairie-wolf, though timorous enough where a man is concerned, is generally willing to try conclusions with even a powerful dog, and when presently a great snarling commenced I burst at full speed through the willows. It was high time, for the coyote had pinned the terrier down, and there was barely opportunity to pitch up the gun and take a snapshot at its shoulder before my pet's struggles would have ended.

Then I ran in through the smoke to find that the wounded beast still held the hapless dog, and as the other barrel was empty I swung the butt aloft and brought it down crashing on its head. However, the coyote was not quite vanquished yet, for I felt its teeth almost meet in my leg, and I stumbled head foremost over it, after which for a few moments there was a mixed-up scuffle, until with one hand closing on the hairy throat I got another chance to bring down the gun-butt. Then the beast lay still, flecked all over with blood and foam, while my hands and clothes were torn, and there were crimson patches about me. Grip whined and licked my bleeding fingers when I lifted all that seemed left of him, and he presented a sorry spectacle. Nevertheless, for some curious reason that struggle had done me good, and, carrying the dog, I limped home with a wound in my leg, considerably more cheerful than when I started out. I even laughed as Harry, meeting me in the doorway, said, "Good heavens, Ralph, what have you been doing? You look like a butcher."

"It's a case of inherent savagery, a return to the instincts of barbaric days," I answered. "I've been killing a coyote with my hands, and I feel better for it. But don't ask questions; I'm almost famished."

We fared well that evening, for there was no need of hurry now, and when the meal was over we sat talking long in the little room. Already the nights were closing in and the coolness outside invigorated like wine, but we felt that the sight of the blighted wheat would not improve our spirits. So I stated my views as clearly as I could, ending with forced cheerfulness, though I meant every syllable of it:

"We are not beaten yet, and if we must go under we'll make at least another tough fight of it."

Meanwhile Harry covered several sheets of paper with figures.

"You are perfectly right," he said at last. "The homestead, stock, and implements will have to go; but I think we'll ask our largest creditors to give us time while we see what we can do at the track-grading. It's possible, but not likely, that we might earn enough to make some arrangement to commence again. However, to consider the probable, there'll be a meeting of creditors, and perhaps enough after the sale to buy us a Colonist ticket to British Columbia. Anyway, we'll ride out to-morrow and call on the road surveyor."

It may have been because we were young, or the suspense had brought its own reaction, but a faint hope commenced to spring up within us, and now, when at least we knew the worst, we were both more tranquil than we had been for the last three days, while I slept peacefully until Harry roused me with the news that breakfast was ready. We started at noon, and before the sun crossed the meridian the next day we found the surveyor busy beside the new steel road which stretched out across the prairie from the trunk line so many fathoms daily. He was a native Canadian, emphatic in gesture, curt in speech, with, as we say here, a snap about him, and he looked us over critically as I explained that we were willing to work for him. I fancied there was satisfaction in his gaze, and this was not unlikely, for we were both lean, hard, and bronzed, while our old stained canvas garments told their own tale of sturdy toil.

"Guess I could let you a track-grading contract," he said meditatively. "We find the scoops, you find the teams and take all risks, but it's pay up when you're through. We've no use on this road for the men who when they strike a hard streak just throw up their contract."

"What we begin we'll finish," I answered with emphasis, while Harry smiled and raised a warning hand unseen by the surveyor. "Neither hard work nor hard luck is new to us, and if it weren't for the latter we shouldn't be here."

"Glad to hear it," said the surveyor, dryly, "you look like that. Well, here's the schedule; glance through it; then you can come back to-morrow and we'll sign the agreement. You'll have to rustle, though, and keep the rail-bed ready; this road's going right through to Green Lake before the winter."

I ran my eye down the list of stipulations respecting the work to be done at so much per rod, with allowance for extra depth scooped out through the rises per cubic ton, saw there should be a profit in it from what little I knew, and tossed the sheet to Harry, answering:

"Our time is precious, and if my partner is willing we'll sign it now. As to what we look like, I'll thank you to remember that has nothing to do with you."

"I apologize; meant it as a compliment," said our future employer, who was grimed thick with sweat and dust, and Harry answered lightly, "We are much obliged to you; my partner is quick in temper. However, you know that you can't get teams or men for love or money now when harvest's coming on, and so we're going to strike you for another two cents per measure."

"Might stretch that far," said the other after more figuring, "but somehow we'll take it out of you. Here, fill your distinguished names into this, and if you like to take it there's another lot—it's hauling in birch logs for stump piles and fencing purposes."

We signed both papers, and on leaving the surveyor we found a man in old blue overalls, whose appearance suggested the Briton, waiting for us near the construction train which had just come up with its load of rails and rail-layers.

"Did you get the grading contract?" he asked; and, when Harry nodded, he continued: "Then as a preliminary I'll introduce myself, Ellsworthy Johnston, one-time barrister, and, as the surveyor classified me, general roustabout. Had a bush ranch in British Columbia and came to grief over it by fooling time away gold prospecting. Rode in and asked yonder eloquent autocrat for a contract, but he didn't see it. Said, and he explained it wasn't flattery, I looked too much of a gentleman, and in consequence if I liked I could shovel ballast at one dollar seventy-five daily. Now shoveling ballast grows monotonous, and one gets a confounded back-ache over it, so if you're agreeable I'll fling in a small sum and my services as junior partner."

"We're not too rich," said Harry, "and we'll talk it over."

"Get a move on there, Sam Johnsing, before the flies eat you! Guess the rails are growing rusty while you're resting," called somebody in authority, and with a smile of whimsical resignation our new acquaintance hurried away.

We made a bargain with him that evening, to the satisfaction of all concerned, and the next morning Harry rode away to divide our few head of stock among our neighbors and hire if possible one or two among those whose crops had also suffered from frost. The latter, like the devastating hail, performs its work erratically, wiping out one man's grain and sparing his neighbors'. Meanwhile I found plenty to do making arrangements to commence our work on the track.



CHAPTER XI

ON THE RAILROAD

It was a hot autumn morning when we prepared to commence our task of railroad building, the last forlorn hope between ourselves and ruin. Harry and I stood each beside our teams, which were harnessed to a great iron scoop or scraper designed to tear out a heavy load of soil at each traverse. This we would pile in the slight hollows, so that, sinking a few feet through the rises and raised slightly above each depression, the road-bed might run straight and level across the prairie. A group of sinewy, dusty men waited about the line of flat cars loaded with rails close behind, while a plume of black smoke curled aloft from the huge locomotive in a dingy column against the blue of the sky. This, with the cluster of tents and shanties, was all that broke the white grass-land's empty monotony.

The surveyor, who was perhaps dustier than any, leaned against the engine's buffer-frame close beside me, mopping his face, which was also smeared with soot, and surveyed us complacently, for with our assistants we formed, as far as outward appearances went, a workmanlike if somewhat disreputable company. Water was scarce that season and too precious to waste in superfluous washing, while we had little leisure to spare on even much-needed repairs to our garments. Still, we were alert, hard and eager, while after the preceding anxiety it was with improved spirits that we found definite work before us, with, what was better still, definite pay at the end of it.

"Well, they've finished the line posts; I guess you can start in," said the surveyor. "You look as if you could keep those scoops from rusting. Good luck go with you! Stir round and heave those rails down, boys!"

Then with a crack of whips we started, and it was with satisfaction that I heard the trampling of hoofs bite into the sod and the bright steel edges rip through the matted roots. Soft earth and tangled grasses filled the iron scoop behind, the air vibrated with the strident clang of rails, and the locomotive engineer performed an inspiriting solo upon his whistle, while the rest of our party followed to finish the wake we left with their shovels. Somewhat improved appliances are used in railroad building now, but though it had limitations the scraper did excellent work in its day. All went well and smoothly for at least a month, and our hearts grew lighter every day, while each time the big locomotive came clattering up we had another length of road-bed ready for the rails, and the surveyor commented on our progress with frank approval. He also did so to some purpose in his reports to Winnipeg, as subsequently transpired, while occasionally, when we lounged languidly contented under the dew-damped canvas at nights, Harry would figure with the end of a pencil how much we had already placed to our credit.

"We are doing well, Ralph," he said the last time it happened, with a smile that lighted his sunny face. "There's enough now to pay off those people in Brandon, and with luck we'll manage to settle with the worst of the rest before the frost comes. It's almost a pity we didn't try the railroad sooner, but"—and here he glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye—"we came out to work our own land, and it's your intention to add acre to acre until Fairmead's one of the biggest farms in the Territories, isn't it?"

"Yes," I answered soberly. "God willing, if health and strength hold out," and in his own expressive way Harry shook hands with me. Harry's hand harmonized with the rest of him, and hands as well as faces are characteristic of their owners' temperament. It was small and shapely, one might call it almost feminine, but its touch conveyed the subtle impression of courage and nervous energy, while I wondered what the woman who reared him would think if she saw those toughened and ingrained fingers now. Neither were words needed, for Harry's actions had each their meaning, and that grasp seemed to say that in this I was leader and whatever happened he would loyally follow me. Then he added softly:

"Yes—with your reservation—we will do it."

Uninterrupted good fortune seldom lasts long, however, or at least it seldom did with us, and presently the line ran into a big coulee which wound through what we call hills on the prairie—that is to say, a ridge of slightly higher levels swelling into billowy rises. In the Western Dominion the rivers, instead of curving round the obstacles they encounter, generally go through, though whether they find the gorges or fret them out is beyond me. In the latter case, judging from what one sees in British Columbia, they must have worked hard for countless centuries. The hollow as usual was partly filled with birches and willows, which hampered us, for they must be cut down and the roots grubbed up; and when at last we had scooped a strip of road-bed out of the slanting side it seemed as if disaster again meant to overtake us.

Autumn had melted into Indian summer, but it was still hot. With the perspiration dripping from me one afternoon, I whirled and drove the keen axe into a silver birch's side, seldom turning my eyes from the shower of white chips, because looking up between the slender stems one could see the black smoke of a thrasher streaking the prairie. The crops of the man who employed it had escaped damage, and as those of many had been spoiled by frost I knew he would reap a handsome profit on every bushel. I did not grudge it him, but the contrast with our failure troubled me. My throat was parched and dried up, for we had finished all the water they brought us in by train, and no man could drink of the shrunken creek, which was alkaline. It flowed down from one of those curious lakes to be found on the Western prairie, where clouds of biting dust which smarts one's eyes and nostrils intolerably rise up like smoke from the white crust about the margin of the waters, whose color is a vivid greenish blue.

I stepped aside a moment to let the construction train with its load of rails roll past, and stood leaning on the axe wiping the perspiration out of my eyes until Harry's shout rang out warningly. Then through the strident scream of brakes and the roar of blown-off steam an ominous rumbling commenced round a bend; there was a rush of flying footsteps, and Harry shouted again. I ran forward down the newly-laid track, and when I halted breathless, my first sensation was one of thankfulness followed by dismay. Harry was struggling to hold an excited team not far away. It was evident that he and the rest were safe, but it was also equally plain that we must gather our courage to meet another blow. In no circumstances could much, if any, profit have been made on that portion of the line which traversed the coulee, but we took it with the rest; and now the road-bed we had painfully scooped out had been swept away and lay a chaotic mass of debris, some sixty yards below, for, loosened by the excavation, the side of the ravine had slipped down bodily.

"I'm glad you and the teams are safe," was all I could find to say when Harry met me, for I struggled against an inclination to do either of two things. One was to sit down and groan despairingly, and the other to abuse everything on the Canadian prairie.

Harry at first said nothing. He was panting heavily, but another man answered for him:

"I guess you might be, and only for your partner's grit the teams wouldn't have been saved. When we saw the whole blame ravine tumbling in the only thing that struck us was to light out quick, and we did it in a hurry, not stopping to think. Something else struck your partner, too, a devastatin' load of dirt coming down on the teams, and he went back for them. Cut the traces of one scraper—you can see the blame thing busted in the bottom there; then there was a roar and she came down solid with a rush, while we did the shouting when he brought them safe at a gallop out of the dust."

"That's a side issue," said Harry very gravely, "and the main one is serious. Ralph, if all this slope is going to slip down it means disaster to us. You see, after what was said when we took the contract, we couldn't well back out of it, even if we wanted to. Hallo, here's his majesty the surveyor on his trolley."

With a clatter of wheels the light frame raced down the slight incline, and unloaded its occupants violently when it ran into the back of the construction train which they had stopped just in time. We did not, however, follow it, because we wanted time to think; and both our faces were anxious when the surveyor returned.

"I'm afraid it's a hard case—one of those things no man can figure on ahead—give you my word we never expected this," he said. "That bank looked solid enough, but there's more of it just waiting to go, and the whole track will have to be set back several yards or so. Anyway, it's particularly hard on you. Remembering what I told you, have you settled yet what you are going to do?"

"Yes," I answered slowly. "We made the agreement, and we mean to keep it. We'll hire more men and teams if what we have won't do. Somehow we've got to finish our bargain, and get our money back, and we'll come to the end of the ravine some day. Isn't that your view, Harry?"

"Of course!" said Harry, as the surveyor turned in his direction. By this time we had fallen into our respective parts. When there was need of judicious speech or care in matters financial it was Harry's tact or calculations that solved the difficulty, while when it came to a hard grapple with natural difficulties I led the way. Again the surveyor glanced from one to the other before he said:

"There's grit in both of you. After all, what you think does not affect the question; a contract's a contract, and we hold the whip hand over you, but I'm glad to see you take it that way."

The surveyor, as we were to learn, was a man of discernment, and he may have been making an experiment, but my blood was up, and I answered stiffly:

"The whip hand has nothing to do with it. We will carry out our agreement, because we pledged ourselves to do so; if we hadn't, ten railroad companies would not make us, and we're open to defy any man in the Dominion, director or surveyor, to force an injustice upon us."

The autocrat was not in the least angry, and smiled dryly as he said: "I believe you. Well, I make no promises, but if you're not above all assistance I guess I might help you. You can lay off and rest your teams for two days anyway, while I turn loose the shovelers; then you'll want all the energy that's in you."

In different circumstances we might have enjoyed that holiday. As it was, I lay still in the sunshine all day, disconsolately staring across the prairie down the track that was apparently going to complete our discomfiture, and smoking until my mouth was blistered. Where Harry went to I did not know. On the second evening, however, our new partner, who had been back to the main line for supplies, came in, and listened with apparent unconcern while we explained matters to him. Acting under impulse, I even suggested that we might release him from his unfortunate bargain, but he laughed as he answered:

"You're generous, but it can't be done. Experiences of this kind are not new to me, and I'm a Jonah, as I warned you. Still, when bad luck follows one everywhere—floods on the Fraser, cattle-sickness, snow coming heavy just when one is finding signs of gold—you know there's no earthly use running away from it, and it's wisest to laugh at fortune and stay right where you are. Dare say we'll come out on the right side yet; and if we don't, in fifty years it won't make much difference. Now try to look less like guests at a funeral, and talk of something cheerful."

I made some moody answer and envied him his way of taking things, while Harry tried to smile, and Johnston, lifting down a banjo, commenced a plantation ditty, which he sang with so much spirit that presently he had most of the shovel gang for an appreciative audience. Then there were roars of laughter when he stood in the entrance of the tent and, with the utmost solemnity, made them a ridiculous speech. After this they went away to their canvas dwellings, and I knew that Ellsworthy Johnston was one of those born soldiers of fortune who extract the utmost brightness from an arduous life, and, meeting each reverse with a smiling face, cheerfully bear their ill-rewarded share in the development of Greater Britain beyond the seas. One may find a good many of them on the Western prairie.

We recommenced work the next morning, and, under the delicious still coolness of the Indian summer, we increased the strain on nerve and muscle and cut down the grocery bill, though I insisted on feeding the horses even better than before. It is never economy to stint one's working cattle, especially when one demands the utmost from them, besides being a procedure which is distasteful to any merciful man. However, though we had to hire more horses, wondering how we would ever pay for them when the contract was finished, the track crept on along the treacherous slope, where we scooped out a double width as basis, winding among the birches in glistening, sinuous curves, while the end of the valley grew nearer every day. Again Harry and I lapsed into the excitement of a race against adversity, because unless we were well out on the open prairie before winter bound the sod into the likeness of concrete there could be no hope of even partly recouping our loss. Even Johnston seemed infected with our spirit; but while we generally worked in dogged silence, he had ever a jest on his lips.

One evening—and the days were shortening all too rapidly—when I sat tired and dejected on an empty provision case, a rail-layer brought in several letters, and, as usual, they were all for me. Harry stood bare-armed, with the dust still thick upon him, just outside the entrance of the tent, holding a spider over our little stove, and glanced half regretfully toward the budget. No one ever seemed to write to Harry. The first was from Jasper. He had visited Brandon and Winnipeg on business, and wrote in his usual off-hand style.

"I've been in to see those dealers, taking my best broker along, to convince them that we only raised solid men in this section," it ran. "Thought I'd enlighten them about you, and the broker laid himself out to back me. He gets all my business—see?—while you can't beat a Winnipeg broker at real tall talking. I should say we impressed them considerably; or perhaps it was the big cigars and the spread at the hotel. Said they'd sense enough to know a straight man when they saw him, and they'd give you plenty time to pay in. So all you've got to do is to sail right on with the track-grading. The boys were saying down to Elktail that Fletcher and his father-in-law don't get on, and there's going to be trouble there presently. I think the old man started in to reform him, and Fletcher don't like unlimited reform."

"Just like Jasper," said Harry. "A woman's heart, and the strength of three ordinary men. Still, when Jasper starts in with a rush no man can say where he'll finish, and we may hear next that he has been all round Winnipeg on our account borrowing money."

Then the new partner, who was splitting firewood close by, laid down his axe as he said: "Hope you'll introduce me to Jasper some day. From what you say, he is a man worth knowing."

There were two more letters, and the next—my fingers trembled as I opened it—was from Grace. It was dated from Starcross House, in Lancashire, and written in frank friendliness, expressing regret for our misfortune, which, it seemed, she had heard about, and ending: "But by this time you will have learned that there are ups and downs in every country, and I know you both have the courage to face the latter. So go on with a stout heart, believing that I and all your other friends look for your ultimate success." To this there was a postscript: "I met your cousin, Miss Lorimer, the other day, and was sorry to find her very pale and thin. She had just recovered from a serious illness, and seemed troubled when I told her how you had lost your harvest."

I placed the thin sheets reverently in an inside pocket, and read them afterward over and over again, because I might not answer them. She had written out of kindly sympathy when the news of our trouble first reached her, and that was all; while I felt I could not write a mere formal note of thanks—and more than this was out of the question now. Nevertheless, I was thankful for her good wishes, and then I stood silent under the starlight, staring down the misty coulee and thinking of Cousin Alice as mechanically I stripped the envelope from the next letter. She had always been ailing, even in the days when we were almost as brother and sister; and now I longed that I might comfort her as in my periodical fits of restlessness she used to soothe me. That, however, was impossible, for my cousin was part of the sheltered life I had left behind across the sea, and I was in Western Canada with a very uncertain future before me.

Then, moving back into the light of the lamp, I read the last letter. With a gasp of astonishment, I handed it to Harry, saying: "I can make nothing of this. Who in the wide world can have sent the money?"

He laid down the spider, and, bending until the glow from the tent door fell on the paper, read:

"Mr. Ralph Lorimer, of Fairmead.

Sir,—We have received the sum of one thousand dollars, from a correspondent whose identity we are not at liberty to reveal, to place to your credit. If you prefer, you may regard this amount as an unsecured loan and repay it with current interest on opportunity. Otherwise it is unconditionally at your disposal, and we will have pleasure in honoring your drafts to that extent.

———— ———— Agent for the Bank of Montreal."

"You are a lucky man," said Harry. "What will you do with it?" And I answered with some hesitation:

"I don't exactly know. Tell them to send it back, most likely. We can both take care of ourselves without depending on other people's charity like remittance men. And what right has any unknown person to send money to me? My friends in England have apparently cast me off utterly, and in no case would I accept a favor from them. Still, I should like to discover who sent it."

"It's some one who knows your little—we'll say peculiarities," answered Harry dryly. "I sometimes wonder, Ralph, what makes you so confoundedly proud of yourself. Can't you take it in the spirit it's evidently meant, and be thankful? You are not overburdened with worldly riches at present, anyway."

To this I made no answer. We needed money badly enough—that at least was certain; and after our frugal repast I marched up and down the line, thinking it over, and then, chiefly for Harry's sake, I decided to accept the sum as a loan. It would materially help to lighten that other crushing load of debt; and though growing more and more puzzled, I felt, as Harry did, there was yet a great kindness behind it.



CHAPTER XII

THE UNEXPECTED

On the first opportunity we paid off the most pressing of our creditors, and continued our labor with greater cheerfulness, working double tides when there was moonlight, scooping out the line along the sides of the coulee, though we lost more than I cared to calculate on every yard of it. As we did so the days grew shorter and shorter, and often in the mornings there was a keen frost in the air. It was a losing game, but we had given our bond and played it out stubbornly, while Johnston, who worked as hard as either now, cheered us with witty anecdote and quaint philosophy after each especially disappointing day. Then one evening when the surveyor sat with us, as he did occasionally, a man approached the tent.

"There's a curious critter hunting round for you," he said, "looks most like a low-down played-out Britisher. He's wanting Contractor Lorimer, and won't lie down until he finds him."

"Adam Lee of Stoney Clough for a dollar; I've been expecting him," said Harry, with a low whistle. "You needn't go, surveyor. Have you been fascinating any more young damsels, Ralph? Larry, will you be kind enough to show his reverence in."

The man grinned as he went out, and presently Lee stood before us. He looked a little stronger than when I last saw him, but there was trouble in his face, and, when I explained to the rest who he was, he sat down and commenced his story. Life is generally hard to such as he, and living close packed together in the hive of a swarming town, with their few joys and many sorrows open for every eye to see, they lose the grace of reticence.

"I set up a stitching shop in a shed against Tom Fletcher's house," he said. "There were none of my kin left in the wide world but Minnie, and, if I wasn't a burden, I wanted to live near her. They brought me saddles and harness to sew, and I earned a little, but I was main anxious for Thomas Fletcher. The lust of strong drink was in him, and he had sinful fits of temper, raging like one demented when I told him to cast out the devil. 'I'll cast out thee an' thy preaching into perdition,' he said. Then Minnie must tell me if I was too good for her husband, and only making trouble, they did not want me there, and I saw that sometimes Tom Fletcher scowled with angry eyes at her after I had spoken to him faithfully. So, because it is an ill thing to cause strife between man and wife, I left my daughter—and I had come half across the world to find her. They told me there were lots of men and horses working on the new railway, and I wondered if there was anything I could do that would keep me. They said Ralph Lorimer was a big contractor—an' there was doubt between us, but I have forgiven thee."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Harry. "The question is, however, what can you do?" and the old man answered eagerly:

"Anything, if it's saddles or harness or mending shoes. I can cut things in hardwood and sharpen saws too, and I'll work for a trial for nothing but my keep."

I looked down at him compassionately, for he was old and broken in spirit, and would plainly starve if turned adrift on the prairie, while as I did so the surveyor broke in:

"You had better take him!"

Then, deciding that perhaps he could help us in some small degree, and that we might spare a few dollars to give him, even if he only kept us in whole shoes, I answered: "Well, well see what you can do, and you can camp in the other tent. There's a set of worn-out harness for a beginning to-morrow; and if you go right across you'll just be in time for supper."

He thanked us with effusion, and when he went out Harry said lightly: "We have made a very bad bargain, of course, but I dare say we can manage to raise all he will cost us. Naturally, I feel inclined to do something for the old man, but that confounded Fletcher exasperates me. His shadow has been over you ever since you started in this country, and, I suppose it's foolish, but I feel that some day he'll do you a greater injury. However, at present I almost sympathize with his action. It isn't cheerful to have a future state of brimstone held up before one continually."

"When I said you had better take him, I didn't mean at your own expense," interposed the surveyor, "but that in the circumstances it would come better so. I guess we'll squeeze him somehow on to the pay-roll of the Company. Heard all about the whole thing from some one. Who?—oh, General Jackson, how should I remember? Kind of religio-political crank, isn't he? Well, I've seen some inventive geniuses among the species, and while we're driving straight ahead we can find use for a man if he's honest and handy finicking round the chores. Still, that has nothing to do with what I'm coming to. We have room for straight live men on this road, and I've been watching you two. Guess you've been losing heavy, and you stuck right down to it. Now, this branch is going to be froze up presently, and they've sent for me to finish a mining loop among the mountains of British Columbia; when some one else has fooled a tough job they generally do. They listen at headquarters when I get up to talk, and the question is, will you bring along your outfit and haul rocks and lumber in the ranges for me? This time we'll try to make the deal a better one for you. We'll square up and pay off on what you've done so far; it will cut the loss, because there's more of the coulee, and there'll be hard frost before you're out on the prairie. Now, I've been talking straight—what have you to say?"

I looked around at the others. Harry beamed approval, Johnston nodded indifferently, and I felt a thrill of satisfaction as I turned to the railroad autocrat.

"We will come," I said simply.

"That's good," was the laconic answer. "Don't think you'll regret it," and with a nod to each of us the man who in a few moments had made a great change in our destiny was gone.

"On the up-grade now!" said Johnston, "but don't lose your heads. The great man paid you a tremendous compliment, Ralph, and that kind of thing isn't usual with him; but take it coolly. More people get badly busted, as they say in this benighted country, by sudden success than by hard luck!"

It was good to lounge in the tent door that evening, and remember that there would be no more dreary awakenings to a day of profitless labor; but perhaps it was the cool night wind and the frosty glitter of the stars that helped to check the rush of hot, hopeful fancies through my brain. I had learned already to distrust any untested offer of prosperity.

For another week nothing of moment happened, and then we spent an hour one morning with the surveyor and a gray-haired gentleman from Winnipeg. He differed from the former in many ways, and spoke with a deliberate urbanity, but I felt that he also spoke with authority and was quietly taking stock of us. We signed several papers, a receipt among them, and it was only then that I realized what that unfortunate coulee had cost us, while, when at last we went out, the surveyor said:

"You have made a good impression, and that man's favorable opinion may mean great things to you. I shouldn't wonder if you cashed a good many big pay drafts before we have finished with you."

"I hope so," I answered grimly. "At present we are rather poorer than when we commenced the work, and whomever the new railroad benefits it has done only harm to us. That, however, is in no way your fault, and having started we're going on to see the end of it."

"Good man!" said the surveyor with a significant smile. "I shouldn't be too previous. You have six days to straighten up your business;" and after a brief conference with Harry I departed for Fairmead and Winnipeg.

Our few cattle were thriving among the herds of our neighbors, to whom we made over our stock of prairie hay. The homestead would doubtless take care of itself until we were ready to return there, as prairie homesteads often have to do; while, whether it was owing to Jasper's eloquence or to other causes, I found our remaining creditors both reasonable and willing to meet us as far as they could. So I came back with a satisfactory report, and the same evening we gathered those who worked for us about the tent, and when we had handed each a roll of dollar bills Harry laid the position before them.

"We sunk all that was left in this contract," he said, "and now when we are transferred to British Columbia we set out almost empty-handed, with the wrong kind of balance. It seems only fair I should tell you this frankly. If you decide to come with us we will, if all goes well, pay at present rates for the services of men and teams. On the other hand, if there is any unforeseen difficulty we may have nothing to pay with, and if any one wishes to go back to his holding I should only say he's sensible. We, however, shall hold on as long as we have a dollar left."

"It's a toss-up," added Johnston. "You take your chances, and get what you can, facing the music pleasantly like the rest of us if you get nothing, which seems quite probable. Now don't jump over the edge of a ravine like the giddy antelope, but put your heads together and think about it."

There was a laugh from one of the men, who conferred apart, and another said: "We're coming along. There's no work for men or horses here in winter, and we've neither money nor credit to sow in spring. Besides, we've taken your money, you have treated us fairly, and it strikes us as mean to back down on you now. So we're open to take the chances, and all we ask is that the chances should figure either way. If you're cleaned out, we get nothing; if you win we want to come in. No; we've no use for a sliding scale to fight each other on, and I guess we'll take Contractor Lorimer's word he'll do the square thing."

"I give it," I said simply.

"We thank you;" and when they went away I felt the weight of a double responsibility.

"I congratulate you on your leadership of the hard-up company," said Johnston lightly. "This is the kind of thing that appeals to me—nothing to lose and all to win, and determined men who can do anything with axe and saw and horseflesh to back one. So it's loose guy, up peg, on saddle, and see what future waits us in the garden of the Pacific slope—in mid-winter."

It was seven days later, and many things had been done, when with our working beasts and few other possessions lurching before us in a couple of cattle-cars, we went clattering through the Rockies at the tail of a big freight train. It was just breaking day, and Harry leaned beside me over the platform rails of a car hooked on for our accommodation, while Lee sat on the step close by wrapped in an old skin coat Harry had given him. A shrill whistle came ringing out of the stirred-up dust ahead, then the roar of wheels grew louder, rolling back repeated and magnified from the rocks above, while half-seen through the mist that rose from a river spectral pines reeled by, and an icy blast lashed my cheeks like a whip as, with throttle wide open and the long cars bouncing behind, the great mountain locomotive thundered down a declivity.

"Steve's letting her go," said the surveyor, who came out from the car. "Got to rush her through for the side-track ahead of the west-bound mail. Say, the light is growing; stay just where you are, for presently there'll be unrolled the most gorgeous panorama that ever delighted a sinful mortal's eye, and you'll see the first of what some day is going to be of all lands on this wide green earth the greatest country."

I looked up, and already the mist was rolling back like a curtain from the great slopes of rock above, sliding in smoky wreaths across the climbing pines, while as the brightness increased we could see the torrent, whose voice now almost drowned the clash of couplings and the clamor of wheels, frothing green and white-streaked among mighty boulders in the gorge below. Then as we swung giddily over a gossamer-like timber bridge, the walls of quartz and blue grit fell back on either hand; and, for the first time, I gazed in rapt silence upon the cold unsullied whiteness of eternal snow, undefiled from the beginning by any foot of man. It stretched in a glimmering saw-edge high above us athwart the brightening east, and, below, smooth-scarped slopes of rock polished to a steely luster by endless ages of grinding ice, slid down two, or it may have been four, thousand feet, to the stately pines on the hillsides below.

There were peaks like castles, spires like the fretted stonework of Indian minarets, wrought by the hand of nature out of an awful cold purity, and mountains which resembled nothing I had ever seen or dreamed of, banded white with broken edges of green by winding glaciers; while sombered forests, every trunk in which the surveyor said exceeded two hundred feet in height, were wrapped about their knees. It was a scene of plutonic grandeur, weirdly impressive under the first of the light, with a stamp upon it of unearthly glory, and we drew in our breath when a great peak behind us glowed for a moment rosy red and then faded into saffron, just before a long shaft of radiance turned the whiteness on its shoulders into incandescence.

"What do you think of that, Lee?" Harry asked.

The old man, staring about him with a great wonder in his eyes, answered, with half-coherent solemnity: "It's the Almighty's handiwork made manifest;" and as we swept across a trestle and the trembling timber flung back the vibratory din, I caught the disjointed phrases, "The framing of the everlastin' hills; a sign an' a token while the earth shall last—an' there are many who will not see it."

"Just so," said the surveyor, smiling across at me. "Now, I'm a mechanic, and look at it in a practical way. To me it's a tremendous display of power, which is irresistible, even though it works mighty slowly. Sun, wind, and frost, all doing their share in rubbing out broad valleys and wearing down the hills, and, with the debris, the rivers are spreading new lands for wheat and fruit west into the sea. 'Wild nature run riot, chaotic desolation!' it says in the guide. No, sir; this is a great scheme, and I guess there's neither waste nor riot. Well, that is not our business; it's our part to make a way to take out ore and produce, and bring in men—this is going to be an almighty great country. Timber for half the world, gold and silver, iron, lead, coal, and copper, rivers to give you power for nothing wherever you like to tap one with a dynamo, and a coast that's punctuated with ready-made harbors! All we want is men and railroads, and we mean to get them. I figure that if sometime our children—I'm thankful I've got none—move the greatest Empire's center West, they'll leave Montreal and Ottawa rusting, and locate it here between the Rockies and the sea. But I guess I'm talking nonsense, and there's a little in the flask—here's to the New Westminster, and blank all annexationists!"

Harry nodded as he passed the flask on to me, while Lee groaned deprecatingly, and then, brushing the gray hair back from his forehead with thin crooked fingers, said: "An' by then there'll be no more cold homes and hunger for the poor in England. It's coming, the time we've been waiting, starving, and some of us praying for so long, an' if they get their own by law, or take it tramplin' through the blood of the oppressor, they'll live and speak free Englishmen, spread out on all the good lands the Almighty intended for them."

I did not answer, though Harry said aside that he did not know the whole earth was made for Englishmen. There was occasionally much in what Lee said that commanded sympathy, but he had a habit of relapsing into vague prophetic utterance, which was perhaps acquired when he ran the Stoney Clough chapel. Still, as hour by hour we went clattering through solemn forests almost untouched by the axe, or rending apart the silence that hung over great lonely lakes, and past wide rivers, while the whole air was filled with the fragrance of pines and cedars, I wondered whether either his or the surveyor's forecast would come true, and decided if that were so England would have cause to be proud of this rich country. For the rest, Harry and I never found our interest slacken, and looked on in silence as that most gorgeous panorama of snow-peak, forest, and glacier unwound itself league after league before us, until at last amid a grinding of brakes the long freight train ran onto a side track. She was only just in time, for with the ballast trembling beneath, and red cinders flying from the funnel of the mammoth mountain engine ahead, the Atlantic mail went by. Then, as we stepped down on the track the same thought was evidently uppermost in each of us, for Harry said:

"Ralph, this land approaches one's wildest fancies of a terrestrial paradise, and if in spite of our efforts we fail at Fairmead it's comforting to think we can always bring up here. If I had the choice I'd like to be buried in the heart of those forests. What do you say, Johnston?"

Johnston smiled a little, but his tone was not the usual one as he answered: "I think I shall. You'll say it sounds like old woman's talk, but I fancy I'll never recross those Rockies. Anyway, it won't worry the rest of humanity very much if I don't, and I dare say we'll get some small excitement track-grading in the meantime. This country doesn't lay itself out to favor railroad building, especially in winter."



CHAPTER XIII

ADVOCATES OF TEMPERANCE

It was a month later, and we had settled down to our new task, when Lee, who had managed to make himself generally useful, took a wholly unexpected step. Our camp stood beside the partly completed track, which after climbing through the passes wound along the edge of a precipice into a bowl-shaped hollow among the mountains. High above it on the one hand the hillsides sloped up toward the snow, which now crept lower to meet them every day. It was strewn with massy boulders and bare outcrops of rock, while the pines which managed to find a foothold here and there glittered with frost crystals every morning. Below, a wide blue lake filled half the hollow, and shingled roofs peeped out among the cedars that spread their rigid branches over its placid waters, while the roar of a frothing torrent rose hoarsely from the forest behind. Beyond this, and walled off by stupendous mountains from the outer world, lay an auriferous region, and a wooden town whose inhabitants had long struggled for an existence, hampered by the cost of bringing in stores and machinery by pack-horse train.

Railroad-building in such a land is an arduous task, needing a bold conception and a reckless execution, while no line is ever driven that is not partly paid for with the adventurous legion's blood. Our share, however, was one of the safest, for it consisted in hewing logs out of the forest for framing the spidery trestles and snow-sheds, hauling sawn lumber into position, and doing general teamster's work. Risks there were of course—the rush of a charging boulder, or a sudden descent of shale, while occasionally a partly grubbed out trunk came thundering down before it was expected to. Comparatively few trained mechanics could be found among all the men about us, and, as usual, the hardest part of the struggle devolved upon the reckless free-lances—sailor-men deserters, unfortunate prospectors, forest ranchers whose possessions were mortgaged to the hilt, and others of the kind, who are always to the front when at the risk of life and limb a new way for civilization is hewn through the forests of the Pacific Slope.

One morning, when I rested my team a few moments, talking to Harry and the surveyor after hauling a heavy log, Johnston came up chuckling, with a strip of cedar bark on which a notice was written.

"We have an ardent reformer among our ranks, and, everything considered, I admire his pluck," he said. "You'll notice you're all invited if you listen to this—'A temperance meeting will be held outside the Magnolia saloon to-night, when Fanny Marvin and Adam Lee will turn the flash-light upon the evils of drink and gamblin'. Every sensible man is requested to step along.'"

"I thought there was something brewing," said Harry. "Lee has lately foregathered with certain sober-faced individuals from Ontario, and they've been plotting mysteriously. Well, I suppose there will be trouble over it; but who is this Marvin?"

"She's a rising religious reformer who has taken several towns on Puget Sound by storm," said the surveyor, "and it has cost somebody considerable to bring her here. That protege of yours is clearly a crank, but he's also more of a man than he looks, and, if it can be done unofficially, I'm inclined to back him. No, I'm not a teetotaler, and as a rule we're a sober people in Western Canada, but they're a tolerably hard crowd down at Cedar, and if once the man who runs the Magnolia takes hold with his tables we'll have chaos in this camp. I'm not prejudiced, but if they must have excitement I'd sooner see the boys whooping round a temperance meeting than a gaming bank."

"Are you going, Ralph?" asked Harry. "I'm not altogether fond of the man, but in a measure we are responsible for him."

I did not answer at first as I looked down upon the roofs of Cedar Crossing. The old trail, which would be useless presently, came winding down through the passes into it, and I knew that while the average British Columbian is a sturdy law-abiding citizen, a love of excitement characterizes the miner, and after being driven out of the central town site by an energetic reform committee, a few adventurers of both sexes and indifferent morals had foregathered at Cedar Crossing, with the Magnolia saloon as headquarters.

Then I said, "Yes, I'm going"; and, as he departed, the surveyor observed dryly:

"I'd take along a few picked men with axes. They might come in handy."

Bright starlight shone coldly on the dim white peaks when Harry and I stumbled among the boulders by Cedar Lake, in whose clear depths it lay reflected with a silvery glitter. But it was warm down in the valley, and the drowsy breath of cedars filled the air, until a reek of kerosene replaced it, and presently a ruddy glare broke out among the giant trunks. When we halted under the blinking torches and two petroleum cressets outside the Magnolia, it seemed as if all the staff of the railroad had gathered there.

"They're both here," said Harry, and I saw Lee standing beside a slender figure in unbecoming dress among a group of men in blue shirts and quaintly mended jackets; also that some planks had been laid across two barrels close by.

"Don't crowd upon the lady!" said a voice. "Order! the circus is going to begin; we're only waiting for the chairman. What's that? Ain't got no such luxuries; well, he can take the barrel."

After this, to our astonishment, Johnston, neatly attired, stood aloft upon an overturned barrel.

"I'm glad to see so many of you, boys," he said. "Now I'm not a teetotaler myself, and this is the first time I've occupied such a platform; but we're all open to conviction, and I want you to remember we've a lady here who has traveled three hundred miles to talk to you. All we ask is that you will give her and the old man a fair show."

He had struck the right note, for the British Columbian is a somewhat chivalrous person, and there was silence, through which the jingle of a piano in the saloon broke irritatingly, until Lee stood up.

"I'm a sinful man like the rest of you," he began in the more formal English and high-pitched inflection I knew so well, though the effect was diminished because some one broke in with assumed wonder, "You don't say?"

"I've the same passions in me," continued the orator, unheeding, "and once I came near murder, while for six long years I was a sodden slave to this awful drink."

"Only awful when it's bad!" another voice said; and there was a cry, "He's getting ahead nicely! 'Rah for the next President! Give him a show!"

"Sodden mind and body!" repeated Lee; "a-groveling on hands and knees in the pit of iniquity, and when I came out it left me what you see—a broken man who, if he'd saved his soul, was too late to save his body. That's what you'll remember—no one can wallow without paying for it, and you're strong men who were meant for better. It's all in the choice you make—health, happiness, prosperity—a jump down a precipice into eternity, or dying half-rotten in a Vancouver hospital."

"The old thing, but he's taking hold," said Harry when the speaker paused a moment, and then a glow of light beat out while a tall figure stood in the doorway of the saloon. The man's face was scornful beneath the costly wide-brimmed hat; he wore a spotless white shirt instead of a blue one, while—and this was an unusual sight—a heavy revolver was strapped about his waist, and neatly polished boots reached to his knees. This I knew was Hemlock Jim, of evil repute, who had set up a gaming table, and was supposed to have purchased an interest in the Magnolia.

"Won't you come in, boys, instead of fooling 'round outside there in the cold?" he asked derisively. "You can have as much water as you like, and we won't charge you nothin' for the room."

I wondered what Johnston, who conferred with his companions, would do.

"I think we will," said the chairman. "Much obliged to you. File in quietly, boys, and those who can't find room will sit on the veranda."

Harry chuckled. "This is distinctly a new line for our partner," he commented, "and the whole trio have pluck enough. I fancy if the other side try any tricks they'll find their match in Johnston."

Then, amid banter and laughter, the big bronzed men filed up the long bare room, after which all eyes were turned toward the three who sat on a little platform beside a piano. Facing them another group, who I fancied meant mischief, lounged against the bar, looking on sardonically. Then the proprietor, who wore a large diamond in his white shirt-front, came out.

"This yere discussin' temperance is thirsty work," he said, "and it might improve the general harmony if before you begin in earnest you had a drink with me. Ask them what they're shouting for, Jim; and, Jess, for once you'll rustle round with the tray."

There was a jingle of glasses, and a damsel with very pink cheeks and lemon-colored hair, who apparently presided over the piano, went round with a tray. It was emptied several times, and I began to foresee that the temperance demonstration would fail miserably, as it might have done but for Johnston's ready wit and the opposite party's imprudence. Grinning derisively, Hemlock Jim led the waitress straight up to the orators' platform, and, with the revolver showing significantly as he bent forward, he held out the tray saying:

"It will help the good feelin' if you have a drink with me."

This was a false step. A big man from the bush of Ontario, whose forebears had probably been Scottish Covenanters, stretched his long limbs out in front of Hemlock, while Johnston smiled as he answered:

"Not at present. Unfortunately I'm a little particular as to whom I drink with. Boys, don't you think it would be fairer if you heard our guests first, and then paid for your own refreshment afterward if they didn't convince you?"

Hemlock Jim deliberately set down his tray, the Ontario bushman seemed gathering himself together for some purpose, and there was an ominous glitter in Johnston's eyes, while just as I expected the fray to begin, the proprietor called out laughingly:

"Sit right down, Jim. Pass on them glasses, Jess. I guess they won't refuse you."

It was diplomatic, but Johnston's hint of fairness went further, and in spite of the frail beauty's smiles, a number of those who listened waved the tray aside with the words "I pass!"

Then, when some one called out to ask what was the matter with the circus, and whether the clown were lost, while others demanded "The lady!" Johnston turned to Miss Marvin, and there was a hush as the slight girlish figure—and she seemed very young—stood upright before us. She thrust back the unlovely bonnet, and her thin face was flushed; but when, clenching nervous fingers upon the dowdy gown, she raised a high clear voice, every man in the assembly settled himself to listen. Perhaps it was a chivalrous respect for her womanhood, or mere admiration for personal courage, and she had most gallantly taken up the challenge; but I think she also spoke with force and sincerity, for my own pulse quickened in time to the rapid utterance. Then changing from the somewhat conventional tirade, she leaned forward speaking very gently, and one could hear the men breathe in the stillness, while, as far as I can remember, the plain words ran:

"It's not only for you I'm pleading; there are the women, too—the sweethearts, wives and daughters waiting at home for you. Just where and how are they waiting? Shall I tell you? 'Way back up yonder tending the cattle in the lonely ranch, where the timber wolves howl along ranges on the moonlight nights; and I guess you know it's lonely up there in the bush. Then I can see others sewing with heavy eyes and backs that are aching in a Vancouver shack. You had no money to leave them, and they had to do the best they could. Have they no use for the money you would spend in liquor here—the women who never cried out when they let you go? Don't heart-break and black, black solitude count anything with you? You're building railroads, building up a great Dominion, but the waiting women are doing their part, too. And I'm thinking of others still, gilt-edged and dainty, 'way in the old country. I've seen a few. Where's the man from an English college that used to feel himself better after they talked to him? Is he here with the fire of bad whisky in him, betting against the banker to win a smile from Jess of Caribou?"

This woman knew how to stir them, and there was an expressive murmur, while some fidgeted. Then the proprietor beckoned across the room, and Hemlock Jim spoke:

"This is only high-tone sentiment. Most of us aren't married, and don't intend to. No, sir, we've no use for a missis rustling round with a long-handled broom on the track of us, and I'm going to move an amendment."

"You can't do it," said Johnston. "You brought us in of your own will, and now you've got to hear us. This meeting is going on quietly to its conclusion if I hold the chair. Sit down, sir."

"I'll be shot if I do!" said the other, and it became evident that trouble was near, for a group of the disaffected commenced to sidle toward the platform, calling on Caribou Jessy to give them a song.

But Johnston was equal to the occasion. "If you're wanting music we've brought our own orchestra along. Mr. Harry Lorraine, the tenor, will oblige you."

Harry promptly entered into the spirit of the thing, for he sat down good-humoredly, and, though I forget what he sang, it was a ballad with a catching refrain, which he rendered well, and hardly had the applause died away when the girl commenced again, while Lee, who followed, made a strong impression this time. Then, before the interest had slackened, Miss Marvin held up a little book, smiling sweetly as she said:

"It was kind of you to listen so patiently, and now I'm asking a last favor. Won't you all walk along and write your names down here?"

A number of the listeners did so, and when the rest refused jestingly, Johnston got up.

"The meeting is over," he said, "but there's one thing yet to do—to pass a vote of thanks to the proprietor for the use of his saloon. Then I should like to ask him to lay out his best cigars on the bar for every one to help himself."

There was acclamation, and the assembly would have dispersed peaceably but that just as we went out Hemlock Jim, who had gathered the disaffected round him, said to Johnston:

"I'm glad to see the last of you. Now sail out into perdition, and take your shameless woman with you. But—I'm not particular—she's got to pay tribute first."

He grasped the trembling girl's shoulder, dragged back the ample bonnet, but the next moment I had him by the throat, and he went reeling sideways among his comrades. Then, as by a signal the tumult began, for with a crash of splintered glass the nearest lamp went out, and a rush was made upon us. Something struck me heavily on the head; I saw Johnston stagger under a heavy blow; but I held myself before the girl as we were hustled through the doorway, and when a pistol-barrel glinted one of the railroad men whirled aloft an axe. We were outside now, but the pistol blazed before the blade came down, and a man beside me caught at a veranda pillar with a cry just as the door banged to.

"It's Pete of the shovel gang!" somebody said. "It was Hemlock Jim who shot him. Where's the man with the axe to chop one of these pillars for a battering-ram? Roll round here, railroad builders!"

A roar of angry voices broke out, and it was evident that popular sympathy was on the reformers' side, while my blood was up. Pete of the shovel gang, a quiet, inoffensive man, sat limply on the veranda, with the blood trickling from his shoulder, and there was the insult to the girl to be avenged; while, if more were needed, somebody hurled opprobrious epithets at us from an upper window. I wrenched the axe from its owner—and he resisted stubbornly—whirled it round my shoulder, and there was another roar when after a shower of splinters the stout post yielded. It was torn loose from the rafters, swung backward by sinewy arms, and driven crashing against the saloon door, one panel of which went in before it. Twice again, while another pistol-shot rang out, we plied the ram, and then followed it pell-mell across the threshold, where we went down in a heap amid the wreckage of the door, though I had sense enough left to remove Hemlock's smoking revolver which lay close by, just where he had dropped it on the floor. He evidently had not expected this kind of attack and suffered for his ignorance. We could not see him, but a breathless voice implored somebody to "Give them blame deadbeats socks!" and there was evidently need for prompt action, because the rest of our opponents had entrenched themselves behind the bar, which was freely strengthened by chairs and tables; also, as we picked ourselves up, an invisible man behind the barricade called out in warning:

"Stop right there. Two of us have guns!"

"Will you come out, and give up Hemlock Jim?" asked Johnston, while half a dozen men who had found strangely assorted weapons gathered alert and eager behind him, a little in advance of the rest, and Lee panted among them with the blood running down his face.

"If you want him you've got to lick us first!" was the answer. "We don't back down on a partner. But I guess he's hardly worth the trouble, for he's looking very sick—your blank battering-ram took him in the stummick."

"One minute in which to change your mind!" said Johnston, holding up his watch. "Bring along that log, boys, and get her on the swing;" and tightening my grip on the axe I watched the heavy beam oscillate as our partner called off the last few seconds.

"Fifty-four! fifty-five! fifty-six!—"

But he got no further. Swinging sideways from the waist, he was only just in time, for once more a pistol flashed among the chairs; and when another man loosed his hold Johnston roared, "Let her go!"

The head of the beam went forward; we followed it with a yell. There was a crash of splintered redwood, and my axe clove a chair. Then shouting men were scrambling over the remnants of the bar, while just what happened during the next few moments I do not remember, except that there was a great destruction of property, and presently I halted breathless, while the leader of the vanquished, who were hemmed in a corner, raised his hand.

"We're corralled, and give up," he said. "Here's Hemlock Jim—not much good to any one by the look of him. What are you going to do with us?"

"Are those men badly hurt?" asked Johnston.

"Not much," some one answered. "Pete's drilled clean through the upper arm; it missed the artery, and the ball just ripped my leg."

"Well, we'll settle about Jim afterward; it's surgical assistance he wants first. As to the rest of you, he led you into this, and we'll let you go on two conditions—you subscribe a dollar each to Miss Marvin's society and sign the pledge."

There was a burst of laughter, in which even some of the vanquished joined sheepishly; but as they filed past between a guard armed with shovels and empty bottles Johnston saw that they filled their names into the book, and duly handed each his ticket, while I regret to say that Harry's selection was daringly appropriate, as with full musical honors he played them out.

"There's a hat at the door!" said Johnston, "you can put your dollars in. You have spent an exciting evening, and must pay for your fun." And presently that hat overflowed with money, while Lee, with his Ontario stalwarts, did huge execution with a shovel among such bottles as remained unwrecked behind the bar. We placed Hemlock Jim on a stretcher, groaning distressfully, while our two wounded declared themselves fit to walk, and before we marched off in triumph to the camp Johnston raised his hat as he placed a heavy package of silver in Miss Marvin's hand.

"I've no doubt your organization can make a good use of this," he said. "It's also a tribute to your own bravery. I'll leave you half a dozen men who'll camp in the road opposite your lodgings, and see you safely back to the main line to-morrow. They're most sober Calvinists, with convictions of the Cromwellian kind, and I don't think any of our late disturbers will care to interfere with them."

When we approached the tents, chanting weird songs of victory, the surveyor met us, and in answer to his questions Johnston laughed.

"The temperance meeting was an unqualified success," he said. "We've broken up all the bottles in the Magnolia saloon—Lee reveled among them with a hammer. Then we made all the malcontents we could catch sign the pledge, and you'll find the chief dissenter behind there on the stretcher."

"Glad to hear it," remarked the surveyor, dryly. "Judging by your appearance the proceedings must have been of the nature of an Irish fair."

I remember that when we discussed the affair later Johnston said, "What did I do it for? Well, perhaps from a sense of fairness, or because that girl's courage got hold of me. Don't set up as a reformer—that's not me; but I've a weakness for downright if blundering sincerity, and I fancied I could indirectly help them a little."

The next morning we were astonished to find that Hemlock Jim had gone. "Thought he was dyin' last night!" said the watcher, "and as that didn't matter I went to sleep; woke up, and there wasn't a trace of him." This was evidently true, and where he went to remained a mystery, for we heard no more of Hemlock Jim, though there was a marked improvement in the morals of Cedar Crossing, while, and this we hardly expected, some of those who signed that pledge honestly kept it.



CHAPTER XIV

THE HIRED TEAMSTER

Speaking generally, winter is much less severe in British Columbia, especially near the coast, than it is on the prairie, though it is sufficiently trying high up among the mountains, where as a rule little work is done at that season. Still, though the number of the track-layers was largely reduced, the inhabitants of the mining region had waited long enough, and so, in spite of many hardships, slowly, fathom by fathom, we carried the rail-head on.

Now and then for several days together we sat in our log-built shelter while a blinding snowstorm raged outside and the pines filled the valley with their roaring. Then there were weeks of bitter frost, when work was partly suspended, and both rock and soil defied our efforts. One of our best horses died and another fell over a precipice. Hay was hardly to be bought with money, provisions only at an exorbitant cost, and though we received a few interim payments it was, as Johnston said, even chances either way if we kept on top, because every day of enforced idleness cost us many dollars. However, floundering through snow-slush, swinging the axe in driving sleet and rain, or hauling the mossy logs through the mire of a sudden thaw, we persisted in our task, though often at nights we sat inside the shanty, which was filled with steaming garments, counting the cost, in a state of gloomy despondency. Except for the thought of Grace, there were moments when I might have yielded; but we were always an obstinate race, and seeing that I was steadfastly determined to hold out to the last, the others gallantly aided me. Now, when the time of stress is past, I know how much I owe to their loyalty.

At length, however, the winter drew to an end, and the whole mountain region rejoiced at the coming of the spring. A warm wind from the Pacific set the cedars rustling, the sun shone bright and hot, and the open fringe of the forest was garlanded with flowers, while a torrent made wild music in every ravine. I was sitting outside our shanty one morning smoking a pet English briar, whose stem was bitten half-way, and reveling in the warmth and brightness, when the unexpected happened. By degrees, perhaps under the spell of some influence which stirs us when sleeping nature awakens once more to life, I lost myself in reverie, and recalled drowsily a certain deep, oak-shrouded hollow under the Lancashire hills, where at that season pale yellow stars of primroses peeped out among the fresh green of tender leaves. Then the bald heights of Starcross Moor rose up before me, and Grace came lightly across the heather chanting a song, with her hat flung back, and the west wind kissing her face into delicate color, until a tramp of footsteps drew nearer down the track.

A man, who evidently was neither a bush-rancher nor a railroad hand, approached and said with a pure English accent:

"I'm in a difficulty, and it was suggested that Contractor Lorimer might help me. I presume I have the pleasure of addressing him? My name is Calvert."

"I will if I can," I answered, and the stranger continued:

"It's my duty to escort two ladies from the main line into the Lonsdale valley. They have a quantity of baggage, and I have no confidence in the half-starved Cayuse ponies the Indians offered me. The trails are hardly safe just now, and the regular freighters hadn't a beast to spare. It would be a favor if you came with yours, and we should, of course, be glad to recoup you for the time you lose."

His manner was pleasant, money was very scarce then, and as it happened we had been compelled to lay off for a day or two, awaiting material; so I arranged to start with him.

"A little change will be good for you," Harry said, when the man departed. "You have been looking as grim as a hungry bear lately. Jim Lawrence, I dare say, would lend you his sisters' saddles."

The outward journey, made partly under cover of darkness, was arduous, for each torrent came roaring down swollen by melting snow almost bank-full, and portions of the trail had been washed away; but we reached the station settlement in safety, and after a few hours' sleep there we turned out to meet the west-bound train. It came thundering down the valley presently with the sunlight flashing upon burnished metal and the long car windows, and when amid a roar of blown-off steam it rolled into the station, I wondered with mild curiosity what kind of women the new arrivals would be. The next moment my pulse quickened as a gray-haired lady stepped down from the platform of a car, for when my companion hurried forward with uplifted hat I saw that it was Miss Carrington, while fresh and dainty, as though she had not traveled at all, Grace followed her.

Then I remembered that my place was that of hired teamster, and I stood waiting outside the baggage-car until Calvert gave me the brass checks, after which I assisted the man who came with me to cinch a surprisingly heavy load on our two pack-horses. The battered felt hat probably concealed my face, all I had on was homely and considerably the worse for wear, and it was scarcely surprising that they did not recognize me. Presently, leading Jasper's bay horse forward, I stooped and held out my hand for Grace to rest her little foot on, and when she swung herself lightly into the saddle, Calvert said:

"The sooner we start the better, the trails are positively awful. Contractor Lorimer, you will no doubt take especial care of Miss Carrington."

Swinging low the broad hat, I looked up and saw a faint tinge of crimson mantle in the face of the girl, while again a thrill went through me when she said simply, "Ralph!" for that name had never passed her lips before in my hearing.

Then, while Calvert looked hard at me and the elder lady bowed, she patted the bay horse's neck, saying frankly:

"It's an unexpected pleasure, and I have often been thinking about you, but never expected to meet you here. What a handsome beast you have brought me!"

Grace seldom showed all her feelings, for a sweet serenity characterized her, but this time I fancied that our relative positions both puzzled and troubled her, and I regretted my own stupidity in not asking who the ladies were. Still, I managed to answer that Caesar should be proud of his burden.

That was a memorable journey in various ways. In places, beaten by the hoofs of many pack-horses, the trail was knee-deep in mire, and in others it was lost under beds of treacherous shale. But Caesar was used to the mountains, and I strode beside his head, heeding neither slippery shingle nor plastic mud, for Grace chatted about her English visit, and with such a companion I should have floundered contentedly over leagues of ice and snow.

The valleys were filled with freshness, and the air was balmy with scents, while every bird and beast rejoiced with the vigor of the spring. Now and then a blue grouse broke out drumming from the summit of a stately fir, white-headed eagles and fish-hawks wheeled screaming above the frothing shallows on slanted wing, and silently, like flitting shadows, the little wood-deer leaped across the trail, or amid a crash of undergrowth a startled black bear charged in blind panic through the dim recesses of the bush. Once, too, with a snarl, a panther sprang out from a thicket, and Calvert's rifle flashed; but the only result was that Caesar tried to rear upright. With fear I clutched at his rein, and it was a pretty sight to see the big, rough-coated horse settle down as if ashamed of his fright when the fair rider spoke soothingly to him. All dumb creatures took kindly to Grace, and, though Caesar could show a very pretty temper in ungentle hands, he yielded to the caressing touch of her soft fingers. Then he turned his eyes upon me with a look that seemed an apology for dividing his allegiance, while Grace smiled under lowered lashes, as though she did not wish to meet my gaze. It was a trifling incident, but inwardly I thanked the good horse for it. Later, when we came up out of a roaring ford, through which I carefully led Caesar, with the stream boiling about my waist, into a dim avenue, she looked down at me as she said:

"This is a dream-like country, and I never imagined anything so beautiful. And yet it is familiar. Do you remember what you once said to me at Lone Hollow?"

The question was wholly unnecessary, for I could remember each moment of that night, and any one in touch with nature could understand her comment. It was a great forest temple through which we were marching, where the giant conifers were solemn with the antiquity of long ages, for it had taken probably a thousand years to raise the vaulted roof above us, with its groined arches of red branches and its mighty pillars of living wood. Nature does all things slowly, but her handiwork is very good.

"Yes," Grace continued, "it seems familiar—as though you and I had ridden together through such a country once before; I even seem to know those great redwoods well. I—I think I dreamed it, but there is another intangible memory in which you figured too."

"I could not be in better company," I answered, smiling, though my heart beat. "We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep, you know; and here among the mountains it seems borne in on one forcibly that, as I told you my partner said, man's intellect is feeble and we do not know everything."

Grace sighed, and then, though she answered lightly, there was the same puzzled look on her face that I had seen for a moment at Cypress Hollow. It seemed as if her mind reached forward toward something that eluded its grasp, until we both broke into laughter as a willow-grouse disturbed by the horse's feet rose whirring to a redwood branch and perched there, close within reach, regarding us with an assurance that was ludicrous.

"It thinks it is perfectly safe," I said. "You might shoot until you hit it, or knock it down with a stick, and yet there is no more timorous creature among the undergrowth, unless it has a brood of chicks, when it will attack any one."

At noon we rested for luncheon in an open glade, where bright sunlight beat down upon the boulders of a stream which surged among them, stained green by the drainage from a glacier; and there was merry laughter over the viands Calvert produced from his pack.

"I did my best, Miss Carrington," he said, "but as yet they're a primitive people among these mountains—and it's not to be wondered at, with that huge rampart between them and civilization. 'Something nice for a lady?' the storekeeper said. 'Guess I've just got it.' And he planked down a salmon-fed reistit ham and this bottle of ancient candy, with the dead flies thrown in. Still, one can't help admiring them for the way they've held on, growing stuff they cannot sell, building stores where few men come to buy, and piling up low-grade ore that won't pay its pack-freight to the smelter. Also I've seen work that three men spent a year over which a hydraulic monitor would have done in a few days, while the rocks seem bursting with riches and the valleys with fertility; but they can get neither produce out nor mining plant in. Their greatest hero now is a certain enterprising director, and they'd decline an angel's visit at any time for that of a railroad builder."

"I sometimes wish I had been born a man, with work of that kind to do," said Grace, with a fire in her eyes. "We hear of the old romance and lost chivalry, but there was never more than in these modern days, only it has changed its guise. If we haven't the knight in armor or the roystering swashbuckler, we have the man with the axe and drill; and is it not a task for heroes to drive the level steel road through these tremendous mountains? You are smiling, Mr. Calvert. I read the papers—Colonial and British, all I can come across—and I know that some day England will need all her colonies. You cannot deny that this is a sensible question: Which is the better for an English gentleman, to use all the strength and valor that is entrusted him—we are taught there will be a reckoning when he must account for them—subduing savage Nature, that the hungry may eat cheaper bread, or lounging about a racecourse, shooting driven pheasants—I know it needs high skill—or wasting precious hours in the reeking smoke-room of his club? If I had a brother I should sooner see him working as a C. P. R. track-shoveler."

"Grace has strong opinions," said the old lady. "I think she is right, in a measure."

Calvert bowed. "It's in the Carrington blood. Miss Grace, I once heard one of your father's old comrades say that the Colonel could keep no officers because he wore them out, and he might have ended as General but that he reversed the positions and wanted to instruct the War Office. However, you mustn't be too hard on the poor loungers; they eat the things the other fellows grow, and some of them subscribe the money to make the new railroads go—they don't always get dividends on it either. Besides,"—and there was a twinkle in his eyes—"you are making my new friend uncomfortable. He is a railroad builder. Are you working for philanthropic notions, Mr. Lorimer?"

"No," I answered soberly; and the rest of the party laughed as I added: "Only to pay back what I owe; and we are making slow progress in that direction. Still, the work has its fascination, and it will last and be useful after we are gone."

Then, while Calvert spoke to Miss Carrington, Grace turned toward me with a sudden look of interest.

"You are not exactly prospering, I gather," she said, "and I am very sorry. Please commence when you left Fairmead and tell me all the story."

I did so—perhaps not very clearly, for she asked many questions during the course of the narrative; and her eyes sparkled at the story of our profitless struggle in the coulee.

"Flour—poor thirds; whose brand?—local pork—and doubtless the cheapest tea, you lived on. I manage the affairs of the Manor, and may I ask what your grocery list came to? How much maize and oats for the horses? Thank you. It was just as one might have expected. No, I have never been disappointed in either Harry Lorraine or you."

She dragged the particulars from me—and no one, much less Ralph Lorimer, could refuse to answer Grace Carrington—with a skill that came from practical knowledge of such details, before I even guessed what she wished to arrive at. Then she laughed at my confusion.

"You have no need to blush. Starved yourselves and fed the cattle. It was well done. And didn't the new partner grumble?"

"No," I answered, glad to change the subject. "Johnston never grumbled at anything in his life, I think. It was he who managed the commissariat."

"Do you realize, Mr. Lorimer, that you are in many ways a lucky man?" she added. "I understand perfectly what it means to lose a crop and carry out an unprofitable contract. But it is in reference to your comrades I speak. Fearless, loyal partners are considerably better than the best of gear with half-hearted help, and it is evident that you have them."

"Yes," I said. "No man ever had better; and it is quite true what you say. With a loyal partner a man may do very much, and, if he is sure of himself, with a higher mind to show him the way, he might reach out toward the heavens and—"

Here I stopped abruptly. Wild thoughts were crystallizing into words I might not speak, and I grew hot with the struggle to check them, while I fancied that Grace blushed before she turned her face away. I know my brow was furrowed and my fingers trembled, so that it was a relief presently to hear her musical laugh.

"You are not an orator," she said, turning around calmly; "and perhaps it is as well. It is not orators who are wanted in this country. Your eloquent beginning too suddenly breaks away. But don't you think we are in the meantime drifting into idle sentiment? And you have asked me neither where I am going nor about Colonel Carrington."

It was true; the first would have seemed presumptuous and I did not care greatly about the redoubtable Colonel's health.

"He has invested some money in a new mine in the Lonsdale district," she said; and there was a slight cloud on her brow as she continued: "The Manor farm has lately cost us, through bad seasons, more than we made from it. So, while Foster takes charge, we are going to live in a ranch up here this summer, in order that my father may assist in the development of the mine. He is practically the leading partner, and until your railroad is finished there will be serious transportation difficulties. I hope you will come to see us often."

"Time is up!" said Calvert.

I helped Grace into the saddle, and the rest of the perfect afternoon passed like a happy dream. Even if alone, at that season the mere sounds and scents of reawakening Nature would have elated me; but then I strode on, holding Caesar's rein, lost in the golden glamour of it all, until snow peak and solemn forest seemed but a fitting background for the slender figure swaying to the horse's stride, while the pale, calm face brought into the shadowy aisles a charm of its own. Once—and I could not help myself—a few lines written by a master who loved Nature broke from me, and for a moment Grace seemed startled. It was a passage from the first home-coming of Queen Guinevere.

"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 massy 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 fashion 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 assisting Miss Carrington. If you like, you can send five dollars to the Vancouver hospital."