"You're all here?" he said. "Where are those axes?"

It appeared that most of them were in the river, which was not very astonishing, for a man cannot reasonably be expected to swim through a flood with a big axe in his hand, and when somebody said so, Nasmyth made a little gesture of resignation.

"Well," he said, "the logs will just have to pile up, if another big one comes along before the morning."

This was evident. They were all dead weary, and most of them were badly bruised, as well, and they trooped back to the shanty, while Nasmyth limped into his hut. Nasmyth sloughed off his dripping garments, and was asleep in five minutes after he had crawled into his bunk.



CHAPTER VI

THE BREAKING OF THE DAM

A faint grey light was creeping into the shanty when Nasmyth awoke again, and lay still for a minute or two, while his senses came slowly back to him. The first thing of which he was definitely conscious was a physical discomfort that rendered the least movement painful. He felt sore all over, and there was a distressful ache in one hip and shoulder, which he fancied was the result of falling on the log, or perhaps of having been hurled against the boulders by the rapids through which he had reached the bank. His physical condition did not trouble him seriously, for he had grown more or less accustomed to muscular weariness, and the cramping pains which spring from toiling long hours in cold water, and, although he made a grimace, as he raised himself a trifle, it was the sound outside that occupied most of his attention.

The door stood open, as he had left it, and a clean, cold air that stirred his blood came in, with the smell of fir and cedar, but what he noticed was the deeper tone in the roar of the river that seemed flung back in sonorous antiphones by the climbing pines. It had occurred to him on other occasions when he was in a fanciful mood that they were singing a majestic Benedicite, but just then he was uneasily conscious that there was a new note in the great reverberating harmonies. Stately pine and towering cedar had raised their voices, too, and a wild wailing fell through the long waves of sound from the highest of them on the crest of the hill. It was evident that a fresh breeze was blowing down the valley, and, as it must have swept the hollow farther up among the ranges, which was filled with a deep blue lake, Nasmyth realized that it would drive at least another foot of water into the river as well as set adrift the giant logs that lay among the boulders. Even then they were, he fancied, in all probability driving down upon his half-finished dam.

Rousing himself with an effort, he clambered out of his bunk, and then gripped the little table hard, for his hip pained him horribly as his weight came upon it. Then, as he struggled into his clothing, there was a heavy thud outside, that was followed by a crashing and grinding, and a gasping man appeared in the door of the shanty.

"Big log across the run," he cried, "three or four more of them coming along."

Nasmyth, who said nothing, set his lips tight, and was out of the shanty in another moment or two. A glance at the river showed him that any effort he could make would, in all probability, be futile; but he and the others waded out into the flood and recommenced the struggle. That, at least, was a thing they owed to themselves, and they toiled for an hour or two very much as they had done in the darkness; only that fresh logs were now coming down on them every few minutes, and at last they recognized that they were beaten. Then they went back dejectedly, and Nasmyth sat down to breakfast, though he had very little appetite. He felt that all the strength he had would be needed that day.

After breakfast he lay among the boulders gnawing his unlighted pipe and watching the growing mass of driftwood that chafed and ground against the piles of the dam. Nothing, he recognized, could save the dam now. It was bound to go, for the piles were only partly backed with stone, and, in any case, men do not build in that new country as they do in England. Their needs are constantly varying, and their works are intended merely to serve the purpose of the hour. It is a growing country, and the men in it know that the next generation will not be content with anything that they can do, and, what is more to the purpose, they themselves will want something bigger and more efficient in another year or two. Hence the dam was a somewhat frail and temporary structure of timber as well as stone, but it would probably have done what was asked of it had it been completed before the floods set in. As it was, Nasmyth knew that he would see the end of it before another hour slipped by.

It came even sooner than he had expected. There was a dull crash; the piles that rose above the flood collapsed, and the mass of grinding timber drove on across the ruined dam. Then Nasmyth rose, and, stretching himself wearily, went back to his shanty. He felt he could not face the sympathy of his workmen. He was still sitting there in a state of utter physical weariness and black dejection, when, towards the middle of the afternoon, the door was quietly opened, and Laura Waynefleet came in. She looked at him as he remembered she had done once or twice at the ranch, with compassion in her eyes, and he was a little astonished to feel that, instead of bringing him consolation, her pity hurt him. Then he felt the blood rise to his face, and he looked away from her.

"You have heard already?" he asked.

"Yes," said the girl softly. "I was at the settlement, and they told me there. I am so sorry."

Nasmyth winced, but he contrived to say, "Thank you," and then glanced round the untidy shanty, which was strewn with dripping clothes. "Of course," he added, "it is something to know that I have your sympathy; but I must not keep you here."

It was not a tactful speech, but Laura smiled. "I meant to take you out," she said. "You have been sitting here brooding since the dam went, and from what Mattawa told me, you haven't had any dinner."

"No," said Nasmyth; "now I come to think of it, I don't believe I have. I'm not sure it's very astonishing."

"Then we'll go away somewhere and make tea among the pines."

Nasmyth glanced suggestively at his attire. His duck jacket had shrunk with constant wetting, and would not button across the old blue shirt, which fell apart at his bronzed neck. The sleeves had also drawn up from his wrists, and left the backs of his hands unduly prominent. His hands were scarred, and the fingers were bruised where the hammer-head had fallen on them in wet weather as it glanced from the drill. The girl was immaculate in a white hat and a dress of light flowered print.

"Do I look like going on a picnic with you?" he said. "The few other things I possess are in much the same condition."

Laura had naturally noticed the state of his attire, but it was his face that troubled her. It was haggard and his eyes were heavy. As she had decided long before, it was a face of Grecian type, and she would sooner have had it Roman. This man, she felt, was too sensitive, and apt to yield to sudden impulses, and just then her heart ached over him. Still, she contrived to laugh.

"Pshaw!" she said. "I told Mattawa to get me a few things ready."

Nasmyth followed her out of the shanty, and when he had picked up the basket and kettle somebody had left at the door, she turned to him.

"Where shall we go?" she asked.

"Anywhere," said Nasmyth, "that is, as long as it's away from the river."

Laura saw the shrinking in his eyes as he gazed at the swirling flood, and though she was sorry for him, it roused in her a momentary spark of anger. Then she went with him up the hillside beneath the climbing pines until they reached a shadowy hollow near the crest of it, out of which a little stream trickled down.

"Now light a fire, while I see what there is in the basket," she said.

She found a splendid trout, a packet of tea, and a little bag of self-raising flour, among other sundries, and for the next half-hour she kept Nasmyth busy making flapjacks and frying the trout. Then they sat down to a simple meal, and when it was over, Nasmyth laughed.

"It's a little astonishing, in view of how I felt at breakfast, but there's nothing left," he sighed. "In one way the admission's a little humiliating, but I almost feel myself again."

"It's supposed to be a very natural one in the case of a man," said Laura. "You can smoke if you like. I want to talk to you."

Nasmyth stretched himself out on the other side of the fire, and Laura, leaning forward a little, looked at him. Without knowing exactly why, he felt somewhat uneasy beneath her gaze.

"Now," she said, "I would like to hear what you are going to do."

The man made a little rueful gesture. "I don't know. Chop trees again for some rancher, most probably—in fact, I was wondering whether you would have me back as a ranch-hand."

"Ah!" cried the girl sharply, while a trace of hardness crept into her eyes, "that is very much what I expected. As it happens, I am far from satisfied with the man we have, but I should not think of replacing him with you just now."

Nasmyth winced, and it was characteristic of him that he endeavoured to beguile her away from the object she evidently had in view.

"What's the matter with the man?" he asked.

"A diversity of gifts. Among other things, he appears to possess an extensive acquaintance with Colonial politics, and he and my father discuss the regeneration of the Government when they might with advantage be doing something else."

Nasmyth frowned. "I understand. That's one reason why I wanted to come back. After all, there is a good deal I could save you from. In fact, I get savage now and then when I think of what you are probably being left to do upon the ranch. I ventured a hint or two to your father, but he seemed impervious." He hesitated for a moment. "No doubt it's a delicate subject, but it's a little difficult quietly to contemplate the fact that, while those men talk politics, you—"

"I do their work?" suggested Laura with a lifting of her arched eyebrows. "After all, isn't that or something like it what generally happens when men turn their backs upon their task?"

Nasmyth flushed. "I admit that I was trying to break away from mine, but it seems you have undertaken to head me off and drive me back to it again."

"That was more or less what I wished," said Laura quietly.

"Well," Nasmyth replied, "as I think you're a little hard on me, I'll try to put my views before you. To begin with, the dam is done for."

"You are quite sure? You built it so far once. Is it altogether out of the question for you to do as much again?"

Nasmyth felt his face grow hot. She was looking at him with quiet eyes, which had, however, the faintest suggestion of disdain in them.

"The question is why I should want to do it," he said.

"Ah!" rejoined Laura, "you have no aspirations at all? Still, I'm not quite sure that is exactly what I mean—in fact, I think I mean considerably more. You are quite content to throw away your birthright, and relinquish all claim to the station you were born in?"

The man smiled somewhat bitterly. "I think you understand that it's a custom of this country not to demand from any man an account of what he may have done before he came out to it. In my particular case it was, however, nothing very discreditable, and I once had my aspirations, or, as you prefer to consider it, I recognized my obligations. Then the blow fell unexpectedly, and I came out here and became a hired man—a wandering chopper. After all, one learns to be content rather easily, which is in several ways fortunate. Then you instilled fresh aspirations—it's the right word in this case—into me, and I made another attempt, only to be hurled back again. There doesn't seem to be much use in attempting the impossible."

"Then a thing is to be considered impossible after one fails twice? There are men who fail—and go on again—all their lives long."

"I'm afraid," Nasmyth declared in a dull tone, "I am not that kind of man. After all, to be flung down from the station you were born to—I'm using your own words—and turned suddenly adrift to labour with one's hands takes a good deal of the courage out of one. I almost think if you could put yourself in my place you would understand."

Laura smiled in a suggestive fashion, and looked down at the hands she laid upon her knee. They were capable, as well as shapely, and, as he had noticed more than once, the signs of toil were very plain on them.

"I never did an hour's useful work before I came out West," she said.

She had produced the effect she probably desired, for in the midst of his sudden pity for her Nasmyth was troubled with a sense of shame. This girl, he realized, had been reared as gently as he had been himself, and he knew that she now toiled most of every day at what in the older country would have been considered most unwomanly tasks. Still, she had borne with it cheerfully, and had courage to spare for others whose strength was less than hers.

He sat silent for almost a minute, looking down between the great pines into the valley, and, as he did so, he vaguely felt the influence of the wilderness steal over him. The wind had fallen now, and there was a deep stillness in the climbing forest which the roar of the river emphasized. Those trees were vast of girth, and they were very cold. In spite of whirling snow, and gale, and frost, they had grown slowly to an impressive stateliness. In Nature, as he recognized, all was conflict, and it was the fine adjustment of opposing forces that made for the perfection of grace, and strength, and beauty. Then it seemed to him that his companion was like the forest—still, and strong, and stately—because she had been through the stress of conflict too. These were, however, fancies, and he turned around again to her with a sudden resolution expressed in his face and attitude.

"There's an argument you might have used, Miss Waynefleet," he told her. "I said I would try to do you credit, and it almost seems as if I had forgotten it. Well, if you will wait a little, I will try again."

He rose, and, crossing over, stood close beside her, with his hand laid gently on her shoulder, looking down on her with a quiet smile. "After all," he added, "there's a good deal you might have said that you haven't—in fact, it's one of your strong points that, as a rule, you content yourself with going just far enough. Well, because you wish it, I am somehow going to build that dam again."

She looked up at him swiftly with a gleam in her eyes, and Nasmyth stooped a little, while his hand closed hard upon her shoulder.

"You saved my life, and you have tried to do almost as much in a different way since then," he went on. "It is probably easier to bring a sick man back to health than it is to make him realize his obligations and to imbue him with the courage to face them when it's evident that he doesn't possess it. Still, you can't do things of that kind without results, and I think you ought to know that I belong to you."

There was a trace of colour in Laura Waynefleet's face, and she quivered a little under his grasp, but she looked at him steadily, and read his mind in his eyes. The man was stirred by sudden, evanescent passion and exaggerated gratitude, while pity for her had, she fancied, also its effect on him; but that was the last thing she desired, and, with a swift movement, she shook off his hand.

"Ah!" she said; "don't spoil things."

Her tone was quiet, but it was decisive, and Nasmyth, whose face flushed darkly, let his hand fall back to his side. Then she rose, and turned to him.

"If we are to be friends, this must never happen again," she added.

Then they went down the hillside and back to the settlement, where Nasmyth harnessed the team, which the rancher who lived near occasionally placed at Waynefleet's disposal, to a dilapidated waggon. When she gathered the reins up, Laura smiled down on him.

"After all," she reminded him, "you will remember that I expect you to do me credit."

She drove away, and Nasmyth walked back to his camp beside the dam, where the men were awaiting the six o'clock supper. He leaned upon a pine-stump, looking at them gravely, when he had called them together.

"Boys," he said, "the river, as you know, has wiped out most of the dam. Now, it was a tight fit for me to finance the thing, and I don't get any further payment until the stone-work's graded to a certain level. Well, if you leave me now, I've just enough money in hand to square off with each of you. You see, if you go you're sure of your pay. If you stay, most of the money will go to settle the storekeeper's and the powder bills, and should we fail again, you'll have thrown your time away. I'd like you to understand the thing; but whether you stay or not, I'm holding on."

There was silence for half a minute, and then the men, gathering into little groups, whispered to one another, until Mattawa stood forward.

"All you have to do is to go straight ahead. We're coming along with you solid—every blame one of us," he said.

A red flush crept into Nasmyth's face.

"Thank you, boys. After that I've got to put this contract through," he answered.



CHAPTER VII

LAURA MAKES A DRESS

The frost had grown keener as darkness crept over the forest, and the towering pines about the clearing rose in great black spires into the nipping air, but it was almost unpleasantly hot in the little general room of Waynefleet's ranch. Waynefleet, who was fond of physical comfort, had gorged the snapping stove, and the smell of hot iron filled the log-walled room. There was also a dryness in its atmosphere which would probably have had an unpleasant effect upon anyone not used to it. The rancher, however, did not appear to feel it. He lay drowsily in a big hide chair, and his old velvet jacket and evening shoes were strangely out of harmony with his surroundings. Waynefleet made it a rule to dress for the six o'clock meal, which he persisted in calling dinner.

He had disposed of a quantity of potatoes and apples at the settlement of late, and had now a really excellent cigar in his hand, while a little cup of the Mocha coffee, brought from Victoria for his especial use, stood on the table beside him. Waynefleet had cultivated tastes, and invariably gratified them, when it was possible, while it had not occurred to him that there was anything significant in the fact that his daughter confined herself to the acrid green tea provided by the settlement store. He never did notice a point of that kind, and, if anyone had ventured to call his attention to it, he would probably have been indignant as well as astonished. As a rule, however, nobody endeavours to impress unpleasant facts upon men of Waynefleet's character. In their case it is clearly not worth while.

"Do you intend to go on with that dressmaking much longer?" he asked petulantly. "The click of your scissors has an irritating effect on me, and, as you may have noticed, I cannot spread my paper on the table. It cramps one's arms to hold it up."

Laura swept part of the litter of fabric off the table, and it was only natural that she did it a trifle abruptly. She had been busy with rough tasks, from most of which her father might have relieved her had he possessed a less fastidious temperament, until supper, and there were reasons why she desired an hour or two to herself.

"I will not be longer than I can help," she said.

Waynefleet lifted his eyebrows sardonically as he glanced at the scattered strips of fabric. "This," he said, "is evidently in preparation for that ridiculous pulp-mill ball. In view of the primitive manners of the people we shall be compelled to mix with, I really think I am exercising a good deal of self-denial in consenting to go at all. Why you should wish to do so is, I confess, altogether beyond me."

"I understood that you considered it advisable to keep on good terms with the manager," said Laura, with a trace of impatience. "He has bought a good deal of produce from you to feed his workmen with."

Her father made a gesture of resignation. "One has certainly to put up with a good deal that is unpleasant in this barbarous land—in fact, almost everything in it jars upon one," he complained. "You, however, I have sometimes wondered to notice, appear almost content here."

Laura looked up with a smile, but said nothing. She, at least, had the sense and the courage to make the most of what could not be changed. It was a relief to her when, a minute or two later, the hired man opened the door.

"If you've got the embrocation, I guess I'll give that ox's leg a rub," he said.

Waynefleet rose and turned to the girl. "I'll put on my rubber overshoes," he announced. "As I mentioned that I might have to go out, it's a pity you didn't think of laying out my coat to warm."

Laura brought the overshoes, and he permitted her to fasten them for him and to hold his coat while he put it on, after which he went out grumbling, and she sat down again to her sewing with a strained expression in her eyes, for there were times when her father tried her patience severely. She sighed as she contemplated the partly rigged-up dress stretched out on the table, for she could not help remembering how she had last worn it at a brilliant English function. Then she had been flattered and courted, and now she was merely an unpaid toiler on the lonely ranch. Money was, as a rule, signally scarce there, but even when there were a few dollars in Waynefleet's possession, it seldom occurred to him to offer any of them to his daughter. It is also certain that nobody could have convinced him that it was only through her efforts he was able to keep the ranch going at all. She never suggested anything of the kind to him, but she felt now and then that her burden was almost beyond her strength.

She quietly went on with her sewing. There was to be a dance at the new pulp-mill, which had just been roofed, and, after all, she was young, and could take a certain pleasure in the infrequent festivities of her adopted country. Besides, the forest ranchers dance well, and there were men among them who had once followed other occupations; while she knew that Nasmyth would be there—in fact, having at length raised his dam to the desired level, he would be to a certain extent an honoured guest. She was not exactly sure how she regarded him, though it was not altogether as a comrade, and she felt there was, in one sense, some justice in his admission that he belonged to her. She had, in all probability, saved his life, and—what was, perhaps, as much—had roused him from supine acquiescence, and inspired him with a sustaining purpose. After the day when she had saved him from abject despair over his ruined dam, he had acquitted himself valiantly, and she had a quiet pride in him. Moreover, she was aware of a natural desire to appear to advantage at the approaching dance.

There was, however, difficulty to be grappled with. The dress was old, and when remade in a later style would be unfortunately plain. The few pairs of gloves she had brought from England were stained and spotted with damp, and her eyes grew wistful as she turned over the stock list of a Victoria dry goods store. The thing would be so easy, if she had only a little more money, but she sighed as she glanced into her purse. Then she took up the gloves and a strip of trimming, and looked at them with a little frown, but while she did so there were footsteps outside, and the door was opened. A man, whom she recognized as a hired hand from a ranch in the neighbourhood, stood in the entrance with a packet in his hand.

"I won't come in," he said. "I met Nasmyth down at the settlement. He'd just come back from Victoria, and he asked me to bring this along."

He went away after he had handed her the packet, and a gleam of pleasure crept into Laura's eyes when she opened it. There was first of all a box of gloves of various colours, and then inside another packet a wonderful piece of lace. The artistic delicacy of the lace appealed to her, for though she possessed very few dainty things she was fond of them, and she almost fancied that she had not seen anything of the kind more beautiful in England.

As she unfolded it a strip of paper fell out, and the warm blood swept into her face as she read the message on it.

"Considering everything, I really don't think you could regard it as a liberty," it ran. "You have given me a good deal more than this."

Then for just a moment her eyes grew hazy. In proportion to the man's means, it was a costly gift, and, except for him, nobody had shown her much consideration since she had left England. She was a trifle perplexed, for she did not think there was lace of that kind on sale often in Victoria, and, in regard to the gloves, it was not evident how he had known her size. Then she remembered that one of the cotton ones she sometimes wore had disappeared some little time before, and once more the flush crept into her cheeks. That almost decided her not to wear his lace, but she felt that to refrain from doing so would raise the question as to how they stood with regard to one another, which was one she did not desire to think out closely then; and, after all, the lace was exactly what she wanted to complete the dress. She rolled it together, and put it and the gloves away, but she treasured the little note.

It was a week later when her father drove her to the pulp-mill in a jolting waggon, and arrived there a little earlier than he had expected. A dance usually begins with a bountiful supper in that country, but Waynefleet, who was, as a rule, willing to borrow implements or teams from his Bush neighbours, would seldom eat with them when he could help it. He was accordingly not quite pleased to find the supper had not yet been cleared away, but Laura, who understood what he was feeling, contrived to lead him into a vacant place at one of the tables. Then she sat down, and looked about her.

The great room was hung with flags and cedar boughs, and the benches down the long uncovered tables were crowded. The men's attire was motley—broadcloth and duck; white shirts, starched or limp, and blue ones; shoes with the creeper-spikes filed down, and long boots to the knees. There were women present also, and they wore anything from light print, put together for the occasion, to treasured garments made in Montreal or Toronto perhaps a dozen years before, but for all that the assembly was good to look upon. There was steadfast courage in the bronzed faces, and most of those who sat about the long tables had kindly eyes. The stamp of a clean life of effort was upon them, and there was a certain lithe gracefulness in the unconscious poses of the straight-limbed men. There was no sign of limp slovenliness about them. Even in their relaxation they were intent and alert, and, as she watched them, Laura realized something of their restless activity and daring optimism. They believe in anything that is good enough in that country, and are in consequence cheerfully willing to attempt anything, even if to other men it would appear altogether visionary and impossible, and simple faith goes a long way when supplemented by patient labour. Laura suddenly became conscious that the manager of the pulp-mill, a little wiry man, in white shirt and store clothes, was speaking at the head of the table.

"In one way, it's not a very big thing we have done, boys," he said; and Laura was quick to notice the significance of the fact, which was also characteristic of the country, that he counted himself as one of them. "We've chopped a hole in the primeval forest, held back the river, and set up our mill. That's about all on the face of it, but there's rather more behind. It's another round with Nature, and we've got her down again. It's a thing you have to do west of the Rockies, or she'll crush the life out of you. There are folks in the Eastern cities who call her beneficent; but they don't quite understand what was laid on man in Eden long ago. Here he's up against flood and frost and snow. Well, I guess we've done about all we can, and now that I've paid my respects to the chopper and carpenter-gang, there's another man I want to mention. He took hold of the contract to put us up our dam, and kept hold through the blamedest kind of luck. There's hard grit in him and the boys he led, and the river couldn't wash it out of them. Well, when the big turbines are humming and the mill's grinding out money for all of you, I guess you're going to remember the boys who built the dam."

There was a shout which shook the wooden building, and Laura sat very still when Nasmyth stood up. There was no doubt that he was a favourite with everybody there, and she knew that she had nerved him to the fight. He did not appear altogether at ease, and she waited with a curious expectancy for what he had to say. It was very little, but she appreciated the tact which made him use the speech his audience was accustomed to.

"I had a good crowd," he said. "With the boys I had behind me I couldn't back down." Then his voice shook a little. "Still, I was mighty near it once or twice. It was the boys' determination to hold on—and another thing—that put new grit in me."

Without being conscious of what he was doing, he swept his glance down the long table until it rested on Laura Waynefleet's face. She felt the blood creep into her cheeks, for she knew what he meant, but she looked at him steadily, and her eyes were shining. Then he spread his hands out.

"I felt I daren't shame boys of that kind," he said, and hastily sat down.

His observations were certainly somewhat crude, but the little quiver in his voice got hold of those who heard him, and once more the big building rang with cheering. As the sound of hearty acclamation died away there was a great clatter of thrust-back benches through which the tuning of a fiddle broke. Then out of the tentative twang of strings rose, clear and silvery, the lament of Flora Macdonald, thrilling with melancholy, and there were men and women there whose hearts went back to the other wild and misty land of rock and pine and frothing river which they had left far away across the sea. It may be that the musician desired a contrast, or that he was merely feeling for command of the instrument, for the plaintive melody that ran from shift to shift into a thin elfin wailing far up the sobbing strings broke off suddenly, and was followed by the crisp jar of crashing chords. Then "The Flowers of Edinburgh" rang out with Caledonian verve in it and a mad seductive swing, and the guests streamed out to the middle of the floor. That they had just eaten an excellent supper was a matter of no account with them.

Nasmyth, in the meanwhile, elbowed his way through the crowd of dancers until he stood at Laura's side, and as he looked at her, there was a trace of embarrassment in his manner. She wore his lace, but until that moment her attire had never suggested the station to which she had been born. Now she seemed to have stepped, fresh and immaculate, untouched by toil, out of the world to which he had once belonged. She was, for that night at least, no longer an impoverished rancher's daughter, but a lady of station. With a twinkle in his eyes, he made her a little formal inclination, and she, knowing what he was thinking, answered with an old-world curtsey, after which a grinning ox-teamster of habitant extraction turned and clapped Nasmyth's shoulder approvingly.

"V'la la belle chose!" he said. "Mamselle Laura is altogether ravissante. Me, I dance with no one else if she look at me like dat."

Then Nasmyth and Laura laughed, and glided into the dance, though, in the case of most of their companions, "plunged" would have been the better word for it. English reserve is not esteemed in that land, and the axemen danced with the mingled verve of grey Caledonia and light-hearted France, while a little man with fiery hair from the misty Western Isles shrieked encouragement at them, and maddened them with his fiddle. Even Nasmyth and Laura gave themselves up to the thrill of it, but as they swung together through the clashing of the measure, which some of their companions did not know very well, confused recollections swept through their minds, and they recalled dances in far different surroundings. Now and then they even fell back into old tricks of speech, and then, remembering, broke off with a ringing laughter. They were young still, and the buoyancy of the country they had adopted was in both of them.

The dance ended too soon, and, when the music broke off with a crash of clanging chords, Nasmyth led his partner out of the press into a little log-walled room where the half-built dynamos stood. It was lighted, but a sharp cool air and the fret of the river came in through a black opening in one wall. Laura sat upon a large deal case, and Nasmyth, looking down upon her, leaned against a dynamo. He smiled as he recognized that she grasped the significance of the throbbing roar of water.

"It was very pleasant while it lasted, but—and it's a pity—the music has stopped," he said. "What we are now listening to is the turmoil of a Canadian river."

Laura laughed, though there was a wistfulness in her eyes. "Oh, I understand, but couldn't you have let me forget it just for to-night?" she said. "I suppose that privilege was permitted to Cinderella."

The man felt curiously sorry for her as he remembered how hard her life was at the lonely ranch, but he knew she would not be pleased if he expressed his thoughts.

"Well," he observed reflectively, "a thing often looks most attractive when it's forbidden you, or a long way off, and, you see, there are always compensations. In fact, I'm beginning to come across quite a few of them."

He broke off for a moment, and Laura, who noticed that he looked at her, fancied she understood in what direction his thoughts were drifting; but he went on again with a laugh.

"After all," he said, "there are exiles who realize that they are in various ways better off than in all probability they would have been had they stayed in the land they were driven out of."

"Ah," answered Laura, "would you go back if you were given the opportunity?"

"No," Nasmyth asserted slowly, "I don't think I should do that—now."

Again she understood him, the more clearly because she saw by the slight wrinkling of his forehead, during the significant pause, that he had grappled with the question. She did not think he was altogether in love with her, but she knew, at least, that he did not wish to go away while she was left behind in Canada. It seemed desirable to change the subject, and she touched the lace.

"I have to thank you for this," she said. "It has given me pleasure." Then—and the words were wholly unpremeditated—she added: "I wanted to look well—just for once—to-night."

She was sorry, a moment later, when she saw the quick change in the man's expression, for she remembered that they had always seemed to understand what the other meant. It was clear that the qualification just for once had not misled him, but, after all, it seemed to her that he must presently realize that the admission was not one a reticent woman really in love with him would have made.

"Oh," he said, "you are always beautiful." Then his manner became deprecatory. "I didn't think you'd mind. In one way what I owe you makes me a privileged person. I felt that I could venture——"

This, too, was clear to her, and though she considered his attitude the correct one, it jarred a little upon her. She was content that they should be merely comrades, or, at least, that was what she had endeavoured to convince herself, but, after all, there was no reason why he should emphasize the fact.

"Yes," she replied quickly, "I think I understand." Then once more she changed the subject. "I want to compliment you on building the dam."

Nasmyth laughed, but there was a light in his eyes. "I should never have built it, if it hadn't been for you. Still"—and he made her a reverent bow—"I owe you a good deal more than that."

Laura made no response to this. She had thrilled at his achievement, when she had heard the manager's speech, and it became still plainer that there was a certain hazard in dwelling upon his success. She could also be practical.

"In one way," she said, "I suppose the result was not quite so satisfactory?"

"It certainly wasn't. Of course, the work is not quite completed yet, but after settling up everything, the interim payment left me with about fifteen dollars in hand."

Laura was not astonished at this, but she was more than a little perplexed, for she fancied that the lace she was wearing must have cost a good deal more than fifteen dollars. Still, she had no wish to make it evident that he had been extravagant; and, while she considered the matter, a man appeared in the doorway.

"I guess you two have got to come right out," he said. "What d'you figure you were asked here for?"

Nasmyth held his arm out, but when Laura would have laid her hand upon it, the man broke in with a grin.

"No, sir," he said severely, "Miss Waynefleet's going right round. Now you're coming along with me, and we'll show them how to waltz."

Laura smiled good-humouredly, and he swept her into the dance, while Nasmyth was seized upon by a girl, who drove him through it much as she did her brother's steers in the Bush.

"A bump or two don't count for much. What you want to do is to hump yourself and make things hum," said Nasmyth's partner, when another couple jostled them.

Nasmyth expressed his concurrence in a gasp, and contrived to save her from another crash, but when the dance was over, he felt limp, and was conscious that his partner was by no means satisfied with him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Still, I really think I did what I could."

The girl regarded him half compassionately. "Well," she said, "it wasn't very much, but I guess you played yourself out building that blamed dam."



CHAPTER VIII

BY COMBAT

Nasmyth's partner condescended, as she said, to give him another show, but he escaped from that dance with only a few abrasions, and, though he failed to obtain another with Laura, he contrived to enjoy himself. All his Bush friends were not primitive. Some of them had once played their parts in much more brilliant functions. They had cultivated tastes, and he had learned to recognize the strong points of those who had not. After all, kindly hearts count for much, and it was not unnatural that, like other exiles who have plodded up and down that rugged land, he should think highly of the hard-handed men and patient women who willingly offer a night's shelter and a share of their dried apples, salt pork, and grindstone bread to the penniless wanderer.

What was more to the purpose, a number of the guests at the dance had swung the axe by his side, and fought the river with him when the valley was filled with the roar of water.

They had done their work gallantly, when it seemed out of the question that they would ever receive the money he had promised them, from sheer pride in their manhood, and to keep their word, and now they danced as determinedly.

There are no cramping conventions and very few shams—and the shams in those forests, it must be confessed, are as a rule imported ones. In fact, there was that evening, among all those in the pulp-mill, only one man who seemed to disassociate himself from the general good-will. That man was Waynefleet. He wore his old velvet jacket as a cloak of superciliousness—or, at least, that was how it seemed to the Bush-ranchers, who recognized and resented an effete pride in the squeak of his very ancient lacquered shoes. It is possible that he did not mean to make himself in any way offensive, and merely desired to indicate that he was graciously willing to patronize their bucolic festivities. There would have been something almost pathetic in his carefully preserved dignity had it not been so obtrusively out of place; and when they stood watching him for a moment or two, Gordon expressed Nasmyth's thoughts.

"How a man of that kind ever came to be Laura Waynefleet's father is more than I can figure out!" he said. "It's a question that worries me every time I look at him. Guess she owes everything to her mother; and Mrs. Waynefleet must have been a mighty patient woman."

Nasmyth smiled, but Gordon went on reflectively: "You folks show your sense when you dump your freaks into this country," he said. "It never seems to strike you that it's a little rough on us. What's the matter with men like Waynefleet is that you can't teach them sense. I'd have told him what I thought of him once or twice when I saw the girl doing his work up at the ranch if I'd figured it would have made any impression."

"I expect it would have been useless," remarked Nasmyth. "After all, I'm not sure that it's exactly your business."

Gordon watched Laura Waynefleet as she swung through a waltz on the arm of a sinewy rancher, and his eyes softened curiously.

"Only on the girl's account," he admitted. "I'm sorry for her. Stills the blamed old image isn't actively unkind."

Then he saw the sudden contraction of Nasmyth's face, and turned toward him. "Now," he said, "I want you to understand this thing. If it would be any comfort to her, I'd let Miss Waynefleet wipe her boots on me, and in one way that's about all I'm fit for. I know enough to realize that she'd never waste a moment thinking of a man like me, even if I hadn't in another way done for myself already."

"Still," Nasmyth replied quietly, "some women can forgive a good deal."

Gordon's face hardened, and he seemed to straighten himself. "Well, there are men—any way, in this country—who have too much grit in them to go crawling, broken, to any woman's feet, and to expect her to pick them up and mend them. Now you have heard me, and I guess you understand."

Nasmyth merely made a little gesture of sympathy. After all, he had the average Englishman's reticence, and the free speech of that country still jarred upon him now and then. He knew what Gordon had meant to impress on him, and he was touched by generosity of the motive, but for all that he felt relieved when Gordon abruptly moved away. He danced another dance, and then sauntered towards the dynamo room, where the manager had set up a keg or two of heady Ontario cider. Several men were refreshing themselves there, but they did not see him when he approached the door.

"The only thing that's out of tone about this show is Waynefleet," said one of them who had once worked for the rancher. "What do we want that blamed old dead-beat round here for, when he can't speak to anyone but the Crown land-agent and the mill manager?"

One of the others laughed, but Nasmyth saw venomous hatred in the big axeman's face. It was, however, not his business, and Waynefleet was a man for whom he had no great liking. He was about to turn away when the chopper went on again.

"Waynefleet's a blamed old thief, as everybody knows," he said. "Him being what he is, I guess you couldn't blame his daughter——"

Nasmyth, whom they had not noticed yet, could not quite hear what followed; but when somebody flung a sharp, incredulous question at the speaker, he stood fast in the doorway, with one hand clenched.

"Well," said the man, with a suggestive grin, "what I mean's quite plain. Is there any other girl, round this settlement who'd make up to that dam-builder as she's doing, and slip quietly into his shanty alone?"

Nasmyth never learned what grievance against Waynefleet or his daughter had prompted this virulence, nor did it appear to matter. There was just sufficient foundation for the man's insinuation to render it perilous if it was once permitted to pass unchallenged, and Nasmyth realized that any attempt to handle the affair delicately was not likely to be successful. He was afterwards greatly astonished that he could think clearly and impose a certain command upon himself; but he understood exactly what it was most advisable for him to do, and he set about it with a curious cold quietness which served his purpose well.

There was a gasp of astonishment from one of the group as he stepped forward into the light and looked with steady eyes at the man who had spoken.

"Jake," he said, "you are a d—— liar."

It was what the others had expected, and they rose and stood back a little from the pair, watching expectantly; for they recognized that the affair was serious, and, though Nasmyth had their sympathy, an impartial attitude was the correct one now. Jake was tall and lean and muscular; but perhaps the dam-builder's quietness disconcerted him, or his bitterness had only extended to the rancher.

"Now," Jake growled, "you light out of this. I don't know that I've anything against—you."

Nasmyth had his back to the door, and he did not see the grizzled Mattawa, who was supposed to be one of the strongest choppers about the settlement, standing a little behind him, and watching him and Jake attentively. Still, one of the others did, and made a sign to Mattawa that any support he might feel disposed to offer his employer would not be tolerated in the meanwhile. Nasmyth, however, realized that there was only one course open to him, and he drew back one hand as he met the uneasy eyes of the man in front of him.

"You are going to back down on what you said?" he asked, with incisive quietness.

"Not a d—— word," the other man assured him.

"Then," said Nasmyth, "you must take the consequences."

He swung forward on his left foot, and there was a thud as his scarred knuckles landed heavily in the middle of the detractor's face. He struck with an unexpected swiftness and all the force that was in him, for he had learned that the rules of the trial by combat are by no means so hard and fast in British Columbia as they are in England. As a matter of fact, it is not very frequently resorted to there; but when men do fight, their one object is to disable their opponents as soon as possible and by any means available.

Jake reeled backwards a pace or two, and the spectators said afterwards there was no reason why Nasmyth should have permitted him to recover himself, as he did. Two axes which the carpenters had been using stood against the wall, and Jake caught up the nearest of them. He swung the gleaming blade high, while the blood trickled from his cut lips and the swollen veins rose on his forehead. This, however, was going further than the others considered admissible, and there was a protesting shout, while one sturdy fellow cautiously slid along the wall to get in behind the man who had the axe.

Still, for a second or two, which might have proved fatal to him, Nasmyth had only his own resources to depend upon, and he did the one thing that was possible. The Canadian axe-haft is long, and he sprang straight in at the man. As he did so, the big blade came down, and flashed by a hand's breadth behind his shoulders. He felt a burning pain on the outside of his thigh, but that did not seem to matter, and he was clutching at his opponent's throat when he was bodily flung aside. Then, as he fell against the log wall, he had a momentary glimpse of Jake bent backwards in Mattawa's arms. There was a brief floundering scuffle as the two men reeled towards the black opening in the wall, and after that a splash in the darkness outside, and Mattawa stepped back into the room alone.

"The d—— hog is in the flume," he said.

That did not appear to trouble any of the others. The sluice was not deep, and, though it was certainly running hard, it was scarcely likely that a stalwart Bushman would suffer greatly from being washed along it.

"Guess it will cool him off," said one of them. "If it doesn't, and he comes back to make a fuss, we'll heave him in again."

Then they turned and looked at Nasmyth, who sat down somewhat limply on a cider keg. The blood, which was running down his leg, made a little pool at his feet. Mattawa, who crossed over to him, asked for a knife, and when a man produced one, he slit Nasmyth's trousers up to the hip. Then he nodded.

"Boys," he said, "one of you will slip out kind of quiet and bring Mr. Gordon along. Two more of you will stand in the door there and not let anybody in."

They obeyed him, and Mattawa looked down at Nasmyth again.

"I guess the thing's not serious," he commented.

"Well," said Nasmyth ruefully, "in one way, I think it is. You see, store clothes are dear, and this is the only pair of trousers I've got."

There was a little laugh from the others, and he knew he had done wisely, when they clumsily expressed their satisfaction at his escape. He had, at least, discredited Jake, and it was evident that if the man made any more assertions of a similar nature, which was very unlikely, no one would listen to them.

In the meanwhile, nobody else seemed to be aware that anything unusual was going on. All had happened in a minute or two, and the clanging of the fiddle and the patter of the dancers' feet had drowned any sound that rose from the dynamo-room. Nasmyth had not long to wait before Gordon stepped in and quietly set about his surgical work, after someone had dipped up a little water from the sluice.

"Yes," said Gordon, "it's quite a nice clean slice, and I guess it's not going to trouble you much, though you won't walk very far for a week or two. As soon as we can get you to the dam, I'll put a proper dressing on." Then he looked up sharply. "In the meanwhile, I don't quite see how you cut yourself like that."

"As a matter of fact, I didn't," said Nasmyth, with evident reluctance. "I suppose you will have to be told." He looked round at the others. "Boys, I particularly don't want this thing to go any further."

He related what had happened, and one of the men stood up. "I wouldn't worry over that," he replied. "We're not going to talk, and if Jake does, one of us will pound a little sense into him. Now I'll slip out and get Highton's team."

After that they gave Nasmyth some cider, and a few minutes later he limped out through the opening in the wall and across the plank they laid above the sluice to the waiting waggon. It was not far to the dam, and before very long Gordon was back again at the mill. It naturally happened, though he was anxious to avoid her, that Laura Waynefleet was the first person who accosted him.

"Have you seen Mr. Nasmyth?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," said Gordon. "I saw him a little while ago. You are wanting him?"

Laura laughed. "I believed I promised him another dance. It's a little curious he hasn't come for it."

"In one way it's deplorably bad taste."

The girl was quick to notice that his gaze was not quite frank, and he winced when for a moment she laid her hand upon his arm, for he saw the veiled anxiety in her eyes.

"Something has been going on," she said. "You don't want to tell me where Mr. Nasmyth is."

"He has just gone back to the dam. He got hurt—a trifling cut—nothing more than that. Still, I insisted on tying it up."

"Ah," cried Laura sharply, "you evidently don't wish me to know how he got it!"

"It is just what I don't mean to do. Any way, it's not worth while troubling about. Nasmyth's injury isn't in the least serious."

"It doesn't seem to strike you that I could ask him myself."

Gordon would have liked to warn her to keep away from the dam, but he did not see how it could be done unless he offered some reason, and that was a thing he shrank from.

"Oh, yes," he said, "you certainly could." Then he glanced down at her hands. "Those are unusually pretty gloves you have on."

His answer was, as it happened, almost as injudicious as he could have rendered it, since it left the girl determined to sift the matter thoroughly. She, however, only smiled just then.

"I think there isn't a nicer pair of gloves in Canada than these," she said.

Gordon took himself away, wondering what she could have meant by that; and Laura waited until next day, when, although there was, as usual, a good deal to be done about the ranch, she went down to find out what was the matter with Nasmyth.

The injured man was sitting in his shanty, with his foot upon a chair, but he rose when she came in, and stood leaning rather hard upon the table.

"It is very kind of you to come," he said, taking her hand. He made shift to limp to the door, whence he called for Mattawa.

"Bring those two chairs out, Tom, and put them in the sun," he said.

The old axeman shook his head severely. "You sit right down again. What in the name of wonder are you on your legs for, any way?" he asked. Then he saw Laura, and made a little gesture of resignation. "Well, I guess it will have to be done."

The sudden change in his attitude was naturally not lost upon the girl, but she kept her astonishment to herself, and waited until Mattawa had made Nasmyth as comfortable as possible. Then she turned to him.

"I am very sorry you are hurt," she said. "I understand it was an axe cut. How did it happen?"

Nasmyth appeared to reflect. "Well," he answered, "I suppose I was a little careless—in fact, I must have been. You see, some of the building gang had left their axes in the dynamo-room."

"That," said Laura dryly, "certainly accounts for the axe being there. I'm not sure it goes very much further."

"It really wasn't very much of a cut." Nasmyth's desire to escape from the topic was a trifle too plain, as he added, "Isn't it nice out here?"

It occurred to Laura that it was uncomfortably cold, for there was a nip of frost in the air, though the sun hung coppery red above the sombre pines.

"I almost fancied you were not overjoyed to see me," she remarked.

Nasmyth appeared momentarily embarrassed, but his expression suddenly changed, and Laura felt a faint thrill when he laid his hand upon her arm.

"That," he said, "is a fancy you must never entertain again."

In one respect Laura was fully satisfied, and, though there was still a great deal upon which she meant to be enlightened, she talked about other matters for almost half an hour, and then rose with a little shiver.

"I must get back to the settlement, where I have left the team," she said, and glanced down at him for a moment with solicitude in her eyes. "You will be very careful."

Nasmyth let her go, but he did not know that she signed to Mattawa, who was then busy hewing out a big redwood log. The axeman strolled after her into the Bush, and then stopped to look hard at her as he uttered an inquiring, "Well?"

"Tom," said the girl, "can't you understand that it would be very much wiser if somebody told me exactly how Mr. Nasmyth got hurt?"

The axeman nodded. "Yes," he admitted, with a wink, "that's just how it strikes me, and I'm going to. The boss has no more arms and legs than he's a use for anyway."

Laura gazed at him in bewilderment, but the man's expression was perfectly grave. "Now," he added, "I guess one can talk straight sense to you, and the fact is I can't have you coming round here again. Just listen about two minutes, and I'll try to make the thing clear to you."

He did so with a certain graphic force that she had not expected from him, and the colour crept into her cheeks. Then, to Mattawa's astonishment, she smiled.

"Thank you," she said simply. "But the other man?"

"Well," replied Mattawa, "if he goes round talking, somebody will 'most pound the life out of him."

Then he swung round abruptly, for he was shrewd, and had his primitive notions of delicacy; and Laura went on through the stillness of the Bush, with a curious softness in her eyes. Mattawa had been terse, and, in some respects, his observations had not been tactful, but nobody could have impressed her more in Nasmyth's favour. Indeed, at the moment, she scarcely remembered how the aspersions Jake had made might affect herself. As it happened, she met Gordon near the settlement, and he stopped a moment. He had come upon her suddenly, and had looked at her with a suggestive steadiness, but she smiled.

"Yes," she said, "I have been to the dam. After the way in which you made it evident that you didn't want me to go there, it was, perhaps, no more than you could have expected."

"Ah!" rejoined Gordon, with a look of anxiety, "you probably got hold of Mattawa. Well, after all, I guess he has done the wise thing." Then after a pause he observed, "There is very little the matter with your courage."

"I fancy," observed Laura half wistfully, "that is, in several respects, fortunate."

Then she went on again, and though Gordon felt exceedingly compassionate, he frowned and closed one hand.

"It's a sure thing I'll have to tell Waynefleet what kind of a man he is," he said.



CHAPTER IX

GORDON SPEAKS HIS MIND

It was a nipping morning, and the clearing outside the ranch was flecked with patches of frozen snow, when Waynefleet sat shivering in a hide chair beside the stove. The broken viands upon the table in front of him suggested that he had just made a tolerable breakfast, but his pose was expressive of limp resignation, and one could have fancied from the look in his thin face that he was feeling very sorry for himself. Self-pity, in fact, was rather a habit of his, and, perhaps, because of it, he had usually very little pity to spare for anybody else. He looked up when, flushed and gasping, his daughter came in with two heavy pails of water. She shivered visibly.

"It would be a favour if you would shut that door as soon as you can," said Waynefleet. "As I fancy I have mentioned, this cold goes right through me. It occurred to me that you might have come in a little earlier to see if I was getting my breakfast properly."

Laura, who glanced at the table, thought that he had acquitted himself reasonably well, but she refrained from pointing out the fact, and, after shutting the door, crossed the room to her store-cupboard, and took out a can of fruit which she had set aside for another purpose. Waynefleet watched her open it and made a little sign of impatience.

"You are very clumsy this morning," he said.

The girl's hands were wet and stiff with cold, but she quietly laid another plate upon the table before she answered him.

"Charly is busy in the slashing, and I don't want to take him away, but there are those logs in the wet patch that ought to be hauled out now the ground is hard," she said. "I suppose you don't feel equal to doing it to-day?"

"No," said Waynefleet with querulous incisiveness, "it is quite out of the question. Do I look like a man who could reasonably be expected to undertake anything of that kind just now?"

It occurred to Laura that he did not look as if there was very much the matter with him, and she stood still a minute considering. As Gordon had said, it was she who managed the ranch, and she recognized that it was desirable that the trees in question should be dragged out of the soft ground while the frost lasted. Still, there was the baking and washing, and it would be late at night before she could accomplish half she wished to do, if she undertook the task in question. While she thought over it her father spoke again.

"I wish you would sit down," he said. "I feel I must have quietness, and your restless habits jar upon me horribly."

That decided her, and slipping into her own room, she put on an old blanket coat, and went out quietly. She walked through the orchard to the little log stable where the working oxen stood, and, after patting the patient beasts, shackled a heavy chain to the yoke she laid upon their brawny necks. Then, picking up a handspike, she led them out, and for an hour walked beside them, tapping them with a long pointed stick, while they dragged the big logs out of the swamp. Now and then it taxed all her strength to lift the thinner end of a log on the chain-sling with a handspike, but she contrived to do it until at length one heavier than the others proved too much for her. She could hear the ringing of the hired man's axe across the clearing, but there was a great deal for him to do, and, taking up the handspike again, she strained at it.

She heard footsteps behind her, and she straightened herself suddenly. She turned and saw Gordon watching her with a curious smile. Tall and straight and supple, with a ruddy, half-guilty glow on her face, she stood near the middle of the little gap in the Bush, the big dappled oxen close at her side. The wintry sunlight, which struck upon her, tinted the old blanket dress a shining ochre, and the loose tress of red-gold hair, which had escaped from beneath her little fur cap, struck a dominant tone of glowing colour among the pale reds and russets of the fir-trunks and withered fern.

Gordon shook his head reproachfully. "Sit down a minute or two, and I'll heave that log on to the sling," he said. "This is not the kind of thing you ought to be doing."

Laura, who was glad of the excuse, sat down on one of the logs, while the man leaned against a fir and gravely regarded her.

"The work must be done by somebody, and my father is apparently not very well again," she explained. "Charly has his hands full in the slashing. We must get it cleaned up, if it is to be ploughed this spring."

"Nasmyth contrived to look after all these things. Why didn't you keep him? The man didn't want to go away."

The colour deepened in Laura's face, and Gordon, who saw it, made a sign of comprehension. "Well," he added, "I suppose that wasn't a thing one could expect you to tell me, though I don't quite see why you shouldn't think of yourself now and then. You know it wasn't on your own account you sent him away."

"How does this concern you?" she asked.

Gordon flung one hand out. "Ah," he said, "how does it concern me?" Then he seemed to lay a restraint upon himself. "Well, it does in one sense, anyway. After all, I am a doctor, and a friend of yours, and I'm going to warn you against attempting things women weren't meant to do. If that doesn't prove efficacious, I'll say a word or two to Nasmyth, and you'll have him back here again. It's a sure thing your father would be glad to get him."

"If you do, I shall never forgive you," warned Laura, with a flash in her eyes.

She was sorry she had spoken so plainly when she saw that Gordon winced. She had guessed more or less correctly what the man felt for her, and she had no wish to pain him. Except for that, however, the admission she had made did not greatly matter, since she fancied that he was quite aware why she had sent Nasmyth away. Gordon changed the subject abruptly.

"There are very few of those blanket dresses this side of the Rockies," he said. "You probably got it back East."

The girl's eyes had a wistful look as she answered: "We spent our first winter in Montreal, and we had some friends who were very kind to us. I like to look back upon those first few months in Canada."

Gordon nodded. "Oh, yes," he replied. "I know—sleigh-rides, snowshoe meets, skating-rinks, toboggan-slides. Quite as lively as a London season, and considerably more invigorating; I guess you've been through that, too. In one way it's a pity you didn't stay in Montreal."

He saw her sudden embarrassment, and fancied that she could have stayed there, if she had wished to do so, but he felt that he must speak frankly, and he shook his head severely.

"Do you never think of your own advantage at all?" he inquired. "Have you none of the ambitions that most women seem to have?"

"Aren't you forgetting?" Laura asked with sudden quietness. "My father found it would not be advisable for him to settle in Montreal—for the same reason that afterwards led us to leave Victoria—and we went West. Perhaps he could have faced the trouble and lived it down, but I could not leave him alone."

Gordon sat silent a moment or two. He knew, though she very rarely mentioned it, how heavy was the burden that had been laid upon her, and he was divided between a great pity for her and anger against her father. Then he rose slowly to his feet.

"Miss Waynefleet," he said, "if I have said anything that hurt you, I'm sorry, but there are times when I must talk. I feel I have to. In the meanwhile I'll heave those logs up on a skid so that you can slip the chain round them."

For the next half-hour he exerted himself savagely, and when at last he dropped the handspike, his face was damp with perspiration. He smiled grimly when Laura, who had hauled one or two of the logs away, came back tapping the plodding oxen.

"Now," he said, "I'm going in to see your father. Custer happened to tell me he was feeling low again, and it's going to afford me a good deal of pleasure to prescribe for him."

He swung off his wide hat, and, when he turned away, Laura wondered with a few misgivings what had brought the little snap into his eyes. Three or four minutes later he entered the house, where Waynefleet lay beside the stove with a cigar in his hand.

"I ran across Custer at the settlement, and I came along to see how you were keeping," said Gordon.

Waynefleet held out a cigar-box. "Make yourself comfortable," he answered hospitably. "We'll have dinner a little earlier than usual."

The sight of the label on the box came near rousing Gordon to an outbreak of indignation. "I'm not going to stay," he declared. "It seems to me Miss Waynefleet has about enough to do already."

He saw Waynefleet raise his eyebrows, and he added: "I guess it's not worth while troubling to point out that it's not my affair. Now, if you'll get ahead with your symptoms."

Waynefleet looked hard at him for a moment. The older man was not accustomed to being addressed in that brusque fashion, and it jarred upon him, but, as a matter of fact, he was not feeling well, and, as he not infrequently pointed out, he had discovered that one had to put up with many unpleasant things in that barbarous country. He described his symptoms feelingly, and was rather indignant when Gordon expressed neither astonishment nor sympathy.

"That's all right," said Gordon. "The thing's quite plain—especially the general lassitude you complain of. The trouble is that if you don't make an effort it's going to become chronic."

Again Waynefleet looked at him in astonishment, for Gordon's tone was very suggestive.

"Yes," added the medical adviser, "it's a complaint a good many men, who haven't been raised to work, are afflicted with. Well, I'll mix you up a tonic, and you'll drive down for it yourself. The thing won't be half as efficacious if you send the hired man. Then you'll set to every morning soon as breakfast's over, and do a couple of hours' smart chopping for a week. By that time you'll find it easy, and you can go on an hour or two in the afternoon. Nobody round here will recognize you, if you keep it up for the next three months."

Waynefleet's thin face grew red, but Gordon's imperturbable demeanour restrained him from betraying his indignation.

"You don't understand that I couldn't swing an axe for five minutes together," he objected.

"The trouble," answered Gordon, "is that you don't want to."

Waynefleet made an attempt to rise, but his companion laid a hand upon his arm and pressed him down again.

"You were anxious for my advice, and now I'm going to prescribe," Gordon continued. "Two hours' steady chopping every day, to be raised by degrees to six. Then I'd let up on smoking cigars of that kind, and practise a little more self-denial in one or two other respects. You could make things easier for Miss Waynefleet with the money you save."

He rose with a laugh. "Well, I'm going. All you have to do is to carry out my suggestions, and you may still make yourself and your ranch a credit to the district. In the meanwhile, this place would be considerably improved by a little ventilation."

He went out, and left Waynefleet gazing in indignant astonishment at the door he carefully fixed open. It seemed to Waynefleet almost incredible that such words should have been spoken to him, and the suggestion that at the cost of a painful effort he should endeavour to make himself a credit to that barbarous neighbourhood rankled most of all. He had felt, hitherto, that he had conferred a favour on the community by settling there. He lay still until his daughter came in and glanced at him inquiringly.

"You have seen Mr. Gordon?" she queried.

"I have," answered Waynefleet with fine disdain. "You will understand that if he comes back here, he must be kept away from me. The man is utterly devoid of refinement or consideration."

In the meanwhile Gordon was riding, circumspectly, down the rutted trail, and it was an hour later when he dismounted at the shanty of Nasmyth's workmen, and shared a meal with the gang employed on the dam. After that he sat with Nasmyth, who still limped a little, in the hut, from which, as the door stood open, they could see the men stream up into the Bush and out along the dam. The dam now stood high above the water-level, for the frost had bound fast the feeding snow upon the peaks above, though the stream roared and frothed through the two big sluice-gates. By-and-by, the ringing of axes and the clink of drills broke through the sound of the rushing waters. Gordon, who stretched himself out on a deer-hide lounge, smiled at Nasmyth as he lighted his pipe.

"I've been talking a little sense to Waynefleet this morning. I felt I had to, though I'm afraid it's not going to be any use," he announced.

"Whether you were warranted or not is, of course, another matter," said Nasmyth. "Perhaps you were, if you did it on Miss Waynefleet's account. Anyway, I don't altogether understand why you should be sure it will have no effect."

Gordon looked at him with a grin. "Well," he remarked oracularly, "it's easy to acquire an inflated notion of one's own importance, though it's quite often a little difficult to keep it. Something's very apt to come along and prick you, and you collapse flat when it lets the inflation out. In some cases one never quite gets one's self-sufficiency back. The scar the prick made is always there, but it's different with Waynefleet. He is made of self-closing jelly, and when you take the knife out the gap shuts up again. It's quite hard to fancy it was ever there."

Nasmyth nodded gravely, for there was an elusive something in his comrade's tone that roused his sympathy.

"Gordon," he said, "is it quite impossible for you to go back East again?"

Gordon leaned back in his chair, and glanced out across the toiling men upon the dam, at the frothing river and rugged hillside, with a look of longing in his eyes.

"In one way it is, but I want you to understand," he replied. "I might begin again in some desolate little town—but I aimed higher—and was once very nearly getting there. As it is, if I made my mark, the thing I did would be remembered against me. We'll let it go. As a surgeon of any account I'm done for."

"Still, it's a tolerably big country, and folks forget. You might, at least, go so far, and that would, after all, give you a good deal—a competence, the right to marry."

Gordon laughed, but his voice was harsh.

"This is one of the days on which I must talk. I feel like that, now and then," he said. Then he looked at Nasmyth hard. "Well, I've seen the one woman I could marry, and it's certain that, if I dare make her the offer, she would never marry me."

"Ah," said Nasmyth, "you seem quite sure of that?"

"Quite," declared Gordon, and there was, for a moment or two, an almost uncomfortable silence in the shanty.

Then he made a little forceful gesture as he turned to his companion again.

"Well," he said, "after all, what does it count for? Is it man's one and only business to marry somebody? Of course, we have folks back East, who seem to act on that belief, and in your country half of them appear to spend their time and energies philandering."

"I don't think it's half," said Nasmyth dryly.

"It's not a point of any importance, and we'll let it go. Anyway, it seems perilously easy for a man who gets the woman he sets his mind upon to sink into a fireside hog in the civilized world. Now and then, when things go wrong with folks of that kind, they come out here, and nobody has any use for them. What can you do with the man who gets sick the first time he sleeps in the rain, and can't do without his dinner? Oh, I know all about the preservation of the species, but west of the Great Lakes we've no room for any species that isn't tough and fit."

He broke off for a moment. "After all, this is the single man's country, and—we—know that it demands from him the best that he was given, from the grimmest toil of his body to the keenest effort of his brain. Marriage is a detail—an incident; we're here to fight, to grapple with the wilderness, and to break it in, and that burden wasn't laid upon us only for the good of ourselves. When we've flung our trestles over the rivers, and blown room for the steel track out of the canyon's side, the oat-fields and the orchards creep up the valleys, and the men from the cities set up their mills. Prospector, track-layer, chopper, follow in sequence here, and then we're ready to hold out our hands to the thousands you've no use or food for back yonder. I'm not sure it matters that the men who do the work don't often share the results of it. We bury them beside our bridge trestles and under tons of shattered rock, and, perhaps, when their time comes, some of them aren't sorry to have done with it. Anyway, they've stood up to man's primeval task."

He rose with another half-deprecatory laugh, but his eyes snapped. "You don't talk like that in your country—it would hurt some of you—but if we spread ourselves now and then, you can look round and see the things we do." Then he touched Nasmyth's shoulder. "Oh, yes, you understand—for somebody has taught you—and by-and-by, you're going to feel the thing getting hold of you."

He moved towards the doorway, but turned as he reached it. "Talking's cheap, and I have several dozen blamed big firs to saw up, as well as Waynefleet's tonic to mix. He'll come along for it when that prick I gave him commences to heal."



CHAPTER X

THE CALLING CANON

There were four wet and weary men in the Siwash canoe that Nasmyth, who crouched astern, had just shot across the whirling pool with the back feathering stroke of his paddle which is so difficult to acquire. Tom from Mattawa, grasping a dripping pole, stood up in the bow. Gordon and Wheeler, the pulp-mill manager, knelt in the middle of the boat. Wheeler's hands were blistered from gripping the paddle-haft, and his knees were raw, where he had pressed them against the bottom of the craft to obtain a purchase. It was several years since he had undertaken any severe manual labour, though he was by no means unused to it, and he was cramped and aching in every limb. He had plied pole or paddle for eight hours, during which his companions had painfully propelled the craft a few miles into the canyon. He gasped with relief when Mattawa ran the bow of the canoe in upon the shingle, and then rose and stretched himself wearily. The four men stepped ashore. Curiously they looked about them, for they had had little opportunity for observation. Those who undertake to pole a canoe up the rapids of a river on the Pacific slope usually find it advisable to confine their attention strictly to the business in hand.

Immediately in front of them the river roared and seethed amid giant boulders, which rose out of a tumultuous rush of foam, but while it was clearly beyond the power of flesh and blood to drive the canoe up against the current, a strip of shingle, also strewn with boulders and broken by ledges of dripping rock, divided the water from the wall of the canyon. The canyon, a tremendous slope of rock with its dark crest overhanging them, ran up high above their heads; but they could see the pines clinging to the hillside which rose from the edge of the other wall across the river, so steep that it appeared impossible to find a foothold upon it.

The four men were down in the bottom of a great rift in the hills, and, though it would be day above for at least two hours, the light was faint in the hollow and dimmed by drifting mist. It was a spot from which a man new to that wild country might well have shrunk, and the roar of water rang through it in tremendous, nerve-taxing pulsations. Nasmyth and his companions, however, had gone there with no particular purpose—merely for relaxation—though it had cost them hours of arduous labour, and the journey had been a more or less hazardous one. Wheeler, the pulp-mill manager, was waiting for his machinery, and, Nasmyth had finished the dam. When they planned the journey for pleasure, Mattawa and Gordon had gone with them ostensibly on a shooting trip. There are game laws, which set forth when and where a man may shoot, and how many heads he is entitled to, but it must be admitted that the Bush-rancher seldom concerns himself greatly about them. When he fancies a change of diet, he goes out and kills a deer. Still, though all the party had rifles no one would have cared very much if they had not come across anything to shoot at.

Now and then a vague unrest comes upon the Bushman, and he sets off for the wilderness, and stays there while his provisions hold out. He usually calls it prospecting, but as a rule he comes back with his garments rent to tatters, and no record of any mineral claim or timber rights, but once more contentedly he goes on with his task. It may be a reawakening of forgotten instincts, half-conscious lust of adventure, or a mere desire for change, that impels him to make the journey, but it is at least an impulse with which most men who toil in those forests are well acquainted.

Nasmyth and Mattawa pulled the canoe out, and when they sat down and lighted their pipes, Wheeler grinned as he drew up his duck trousers and surveyed his knees, which were raw and bleeding. Then he held up one of his hands that his comrades might notice the blisters upon it. He was a little, wiry man with dark eyes, which had a snap in them.

"Well," he observed, "we're here, and I guess any man with sense enough to prefer whole bones to broken ones would wonder why we are. It's most twelve years since I used to head off into the Bush this way in Washington."

Gordon glanced at him with a twinkle in his eyes. "Now," he observed, "you've hit the reason the first time. When you've done it once, you'll do it again. You have to. Perhaps it's Nature's protest against your axiom that man's chief business is dollar-making. Still, I'm admitting that this is a blamed curious place for Nasmyth to figure on killing a wapiti in. Say, are you going to sleep here to-night, Derrick?"

It was very evident that none of the big wapiti—elks, as the Bushman incorrectly calls them—could have reached that spot, but Nasmyth laughed.

"I felt I'd like to see the fall—I don't know why," he said. "It's scarcely another mile, and I've been up almost that far with an Indian before. There's a ravine with young spruce in it where we could sleep."

"Then," announced Wheeler resolutely, "we're starting right now. When I pole a canoe up a place of this kind I want to see where I'm going. I once went down a big rapid with the canoe-bottom up in front of me in the dark, and one journey of that kind is quite enough."

They dumped out their camp gear, and took hold of the canoe, a beautifully modelled, fragile thing, hollowed out of a cedar log, and for the next half-hour hauled it laboriously over some sixty yards of boulders and pushed it, walking waist-deep, across rock-strewn pools. Then they went back for their wet tent, axes, rifles, blankets, and a bag of flour, and when they had reloaded the canoe, they took up the poles again. It was the hardest kind of work, and demanded strength and skill, for a very small blunder would have meant wreck upon some froth-lapped boulder, or an upset into the fierce white rush of the river, but at length they reached a deep whirling pool, round which long smears of white froth swung in wild gyrations. The smooth rock rose out of the pool without even a cranny one could slip a hand into, and the river fell tumultuously over a ledge into the head of it. The water swept out of a veil of thin white mist, and the great rift rang with a bewildering din. One felt that the vast primeval forces were omnipotent there. As the men looked about them with the spray on their wet faces and the white mist streaming by, Mattawa, who stood up forward, dropped suddenly into the bottom of the canoe.

"In poles," he said. "Paddle! Get a move on her!" Nasmyth, who felt his pole dip into empty water, flung it in and grabbed his paddle, for the craft shot forward suddenly with the swing of the eddy towards the fall. He did not know whether the stream would sweep them under it, but he was not desirous of affording it the opportunity. For perhaps a minute they exerted themselves furiously, gasping as they strained aching arms and backs, and meanwhile, in spite of them, beneath the towering fall of rock, the canoe slid on toward the fall. It also drew a little nearer to the middle of the pool, where there was a curious bevelled hollow, round which the white foam spun. It seemed to Nasmyth that the stream went bodily down.

"Paddle," said Mattawa hoarsely. "Heave her clear of it."

They drove furiously between the white-streaked shoot of the fall and that horribly suggestive whirling; then, as they went back towards the outrush from the pool, they made another desperate, gasping effort. For several moments it seemed that they must be swept back again, and then they gained a little, and, with a few more strokes, reached the edge of the rapid. They let the canoe drive down the rapid while the boulders flashed by them, for there was the same desire in all of them, and that was to get as far as possible away from that horrible pool. At last Mattawa, standing up forward, poled the canoe in where a deep ravine rent the dark rock's side, and the party went ashore, wet and gasping. Wheeler looked back up the gorge and solemnly shook his head.

"If you want to see any more of it, you've got to do it alone. I've had enough," he declared. "A man who runs a pulp-mill has no use for paddling under that kind of fall. I'm not going back again."

Mattawa and Gordon set the tent up in the hollow of the ravine, while Wheeler hewed off spruce branches with which to make the beds; but Nasmyth did nothing to assist any of them. Thinking hard, he sat on a boulder, with his unlighted pipe in his hand. The throbbing roar of water rang about him; and it was then that the great project crept into his mind. It was rapidly growing dark in the bottom of the great rift, but he could still see the dim white flashing of the fall and the vast wall of rock and rugged hillside that ran up in shadowy grandeur, high above his head, and as he gazed at it all he felt his heart throb fast. He was conscious of a curious thrill as he watched and listened to that clash of stupendous forces. The river had spent countless ages cutting out that channel, hurling down mighty boulders and stream-driven shingle upon the living rock; but it was, it seemed to him, within man's power to alter it in a few arduous months. He sat very still, astonished at the daring of his own conception, until Wheeler strolled up to him.

"How much does the river drop at the fall?" he asked.

"About eight feet in the fall itself," answered Wheeler. "Seems to me it falls much more in the rush above. Still, I can't say I noticed it particularly—I had something else to think about."

"It's a short rapid," remarked Nasmyth reflectively. "There is, no doubt, a great deal of the hardest kind of rock under it, which is, in one or two respects, unfortunate. I suppose you don't know very much about geology?"

"I don't," confessed the pulp-miller. "Machines are my specialty."

"Well," said Nasmyth, "I'm afraid I don't either, and I believe one or two of these canyons have puzzled wiser folks than I. You see, the general notion is that the rivers made them, but it doesn't seem quite reasonable to imagine a river tilting at a solid range and splitting it through the middle. In fact, it seems to me that some of the canyons were there already, and the rivers just ran into them. One or two Indians have come down from the valley close to the fall, and they told me the river was quite deep there. The rock just holds it up at the fall. It's a natural dam—a dyke, I think they call it."

"I don't quite understand what all this is leading to," observed Wheeler.

Nasmyth laughed, though there was, as his companion noticed, a curious look in his eyes. "I'll try to make it clearer when we get into the valley. We're going there to-morrow."

It was almost dark now, and they went back together to the little fire that burned redly among the spruces in the ravine. There Mattawa and Gordon had a simple supper ready. The others stretched themselves out, rolled in their blankets, soon after they had eaten, but Nasmyth lay propped up on one elbow, wide awake, listening to the roar of water until well into the night. The stream drowned the faint rustling of the spruces in a great dominant note, and he set his lips as he recognized its depth of tone and volume. He had once more determined to pit all his strength of mind and body against the river. Still, he went to sleep at last, and awakening some time after it was dawn on the heights above, roused his comrades. When breakfast was over he started with them up the ravine to cross the range.

It was afternoon before they accomplished the climb, though the height was not great and a ravine pierced the crest, and they had rent most of their clothes to tatters when they scrambled down the slope into the valley. Those pine-shrouded hillsides are strewn with mighty fallen trees, amid which the tangled underbrush grows tall and rank, and, where the pines are less thickly spaced, there are usually matted groves of willows, if the soil is damp. They pitched camp on the edge of the valley, and Gordon and Nasmyth prepared supper, while Wheeler cut firewood and Mattawa went out to prospect for the tracks of feeding deer. The axeman came back to say there were no signs of any wapiti, though the little Bush deer were evidently about, and it was decided to try for one that night with the pitlight, a mode of shooting now and then adopted when the deer are shy.

They ate their supper, and afterwards lay down with their blankets rolled about them, for it grew very cold as darkness crept up the valley. Like most of the other valleys, this one was walled in by steep-sided, pine-shrouded hills; but in this case there were no trees in the bottom of it, which, while very narrow, appeared several miles long. It was also nearly level, and the river wound through it in deep, still bends. There are not many valleys in that country in which heavy timber fails to grow, and those within reach of a market have been seized upon; for all ranch produce is in excellent demand, and the clearing of virgin forest is a singularly arduous task. In fact, there was only one reason why this strip of natural prairie had not already been claimed. Most of it was swamp. Nasmyth, who was quieter than usual, watched the filmy mist creep about it as the soft darkness rolled down the hillsides.

Gordon rose and hooked a pitlight into his hat. This pitlight consists simply of a little open miner's-lamp, which has fixed beneath it a shield cut out of any convenient meat-can. The lamp is filled with seal oil. Once a man has fastened it upon his head, the light is cut off from his person, so that he stands invisible, and the little flame appears unsupported. Deer of any kind are endued with an inquisitiveness which frequently leads to their destruction, and when they notice the twinkling light flitting through the air they approach it to ascertain the reason for such an unusual thing. Then the rancher shoots, as soon as their shining eyes become visible.

The party divided. Gordon and Nasmyth, who kept near each other, fell over several rotting trees, and into what appeared to be crumbling drains. They floundered knee-deep through withered timothy, which is not a natural grass. For an hour or two nobody saw any deer. Then Gordon, who was cautiously skirting another drain, closed in on Nasmyth until he touched his comrade. Nasmyth heard a crackling rustle among the withered grass. Gordon made a little abrupt movement.