A Damaged Reputation
The girl glanced at the very small gap in the forest, and again the man guessed her thoughts.
"And that is all you have cleared?"
"Yes," said Brooke, with a little smile. "One can lounge very successfully here. Still, even if there was not a tree upon it the soil wouldn't be worth anything, and it's only in places one can find a foot or two of it. When I first came in, an enterprising gentleman in the land agency business sold me this wilderness of rock and gravel to feed cattle and grow fruit trees on, though I fancy I am not the only confiding stranger who has been treated in the same fashion in this country."
For a moment a curious expression, which Brooke could attach no meaning to, crept into his companion's face, but though there was a faint flush in her cheeks it grew suddenly reposeful again.
"I gave you a dollar last night," she said, and stopped a moment. "I have, as I told you, lived in England, and I recognized by your voice that you came from there, but, of course, I hadn't – "
Brooke smiled at her. "If you look at it in one light, I scarcely think that explanation is gratifying to one's vanity. Still, you have also lived in Canada, and you ought to know that whoever parts with a dollar in this country, even under a misapprehension, very rarely gets it back."
The girl regarded him gravely a moment with the faint warmth still showing in her sun-tanned cheeks, and then looked away towards the sliding water. She said nothing whatever, although there was a good deal to be deduced from the man's speech. Then she rose as Major Hume came out of the house.
They left the ranch that day, and for a week Brooke led them through dark fir forests, and waited on them in their camps. He would also have stayed with them longer could he have found a reasonable excuse, but, as it happened, a most exemplary Siwash whom he knew appeared, and offered his services, when they reached the lonely mountain-girt lake. Then he said farewell to Major Hume, and was plodding down the homeward trail with his packs slung about him, when he met the girl coming up from the lake. She carried a cluster of the crimson wine-berries in her hand, and stopped abruptly when she saw him. She and her younger companions had been fishing that afternoon, and though Brooke could not see the latter amidst the serried trunks, their voices broke sharply through the stillness of the evening. It was significant that both he and the girl stood still without speaking until the voices grew less distinct.
Then she said, quietly, "So you are going away?"
"Yes," said Brooke, a trifle grimly. "An Indian I can recommend came in this afternoon. That made it unnecessary for me to stay."
"You seem in a hurry to go."
Brooke made a little gesture. "I fancy I have stayed with Major Hume quite as long as is good for me. The effort it cost me to go away was sufficiently unpleasant already. It is, you see, scarcely likely that I shall ever spend a week like the past one again."
There was sympathy in his companion's eyes, for she had seen his comfortless dwelling, and guessed tolerably correctly what manner of life he led. It would, she realized, have been easier for him had he been born a bushman, for there was no doubt in her mind that he was one who had been accustomed to luxury in England.
"You are going back to the ranch?" she said.
"For a little while, and then I shall take the trail. Where it will lead me is more than I know, but the ranch is as great a failure as its owner. And yet a month – or even a week – ago I was dangerously content to stay there."
The girl fancied she understood him, for she had seen broken men who had lost heart in the struggle sink to the Indian's level, and ask no more than the subsistence they could gain with rod and gun. That was, perhaps, enough for an Indian, but it seemed to her a flinging of his birthright away in the case of a white man. Her face was quietly grave, and Brooke felt a little thrill run through him as he looked at her.
She stood, slender and very shapely, with unconscious pride in her pose, in front of the great cylindrical trunk of a cedar whose grey bark forced up every line of her white-clad figure, and he realized, when he met the big grave eyes, that he had pulled himself upon the edge of a precipice a week ago. He had let himself drift recklessly during the last two years, but it was plain to him now that he would have gone down once for all had he mated with Bella.
"I think you are doing wisely," she said, quietly. "There is a chance for every man somewhere in this country."
Brooke smiled drily. "I am going to look for mine. Whether I shall find it I do not know, but I am, at least, glad I have seen you. Otherwise, I might have settled down at the ranch again."
"What have I to do with that decision?" and the girl regarded him steadily.
"It is a trifle difficult to explain. Still, you see, your gracious kindliness reminded me of a good deal that once was mine, and after the past week I could never go back to the old life at the ranch. No doubt there comes to every one who attempts to console himself with them, a time when the husks and sty grow nauseating. I do not know why I should tell you this, and scarcely think I would have done so had there been any probability of our ever meeting again."
There was full comprehension in the girl's eyes, as well as a trace of compassion, and she held out a little hand.
"Good-bye!" she said, quietly. "If they are of any value, my good wishes go with you."
Brooke made her a little deferential inclination, as the dainty fingers rested a moment in his hard palm; then he swung off his big shapeless hat and turned away, but the girl stood still, looking after him, until the lonely, plodding figure faded into the shadows of the pines, while it was with a little thrill of sympathy she went back to camp, for she realized it was a very great compliment the man had paid her. He was, it seemed, turning his back on his possessions, and going away, because she had awakened in him the latent sense of responsibility. She was, however, also a little afraid, for no one could foresee what the result of his decision would be, and she felt that to help in diverting the course of another's life was no light thing.
In the meanwhile, Brooke held on up the hillside with long, swinging strides, crashing through barberry thickets and trampling the breast-high fern, until he stopped and made his camp on the edge of the snow-scarped slopes when the soft darkness fell. His road was rough, and in places perilous, but there was a relief in vigorous action now the decision was made, and the old apathy fell from him as he climbed towards the peaks above. It was, however, several days later when he reached the ranch, and came upon Jimmy sprawling his ungainly length outside it, basking in the sun. Still, the latter took his corn-cob pipe from his lips, and became attentive when he saw his face. This, he realized, was not altogether the same man who had left him a little while ago.
"Get up!" said Brooke, almost sharply. "I want you to listen to me. If it suits you to stay here by yourself, you can; in the meanwhile, do what you like, which will, of course, be very little, with the ranch. In return, I'll only ask you to take care of the fiddle until I send for it. I'm going away."
Jimmy nodded, for he had expected this. "That's all right!" he said. "I guess I'll stay. I don't know any other place where one can grub out enough to eat quite so easily. Where're you going to?"
"I don't quite know," and Brooke smiled grimly. "Up and down the province – anywhere I can pick up a dollar or two daily by working for them."
"The trouble is that they're so blamed hard to stick to when you've got them," said Jimmy, reflectively. "Now, you don't want dollars here."
"If I had two thousand of them I'd stay, and make something of the ranch, rocky as it is."
"It couldn't be done with less, and I guess you're sensible. I'm quite happy slouching round here, but there's a kind of difference between you and me. That girl with the big eyes has been putting notions into you?"
Brooke made no disclaimer, and Jimmy laughed. "It's a little curious – you don't even know who she is?"
"Her name is Barbara. She is, she told me, a Canadian."
"Canada's quite a big country," said Jimmy, reflectively. "You could put England into its vest pocket without knowing it was there. I guess it will be a long while before you see her again, and if you meet her in the cities she's not going to remember you. You'd find her quite a different kind of young woman there. When are you going?"
"At sundown. I'd go now, but I want a few hours' rest and sleep."
Jimmy looked at him with sudden concern in his face. "Then I'll be good and lonely to-night," he said. "Say, do you think I could take out the fiddle now and then to keep me company? I guess I could play it, like a banjo, with my fingers."
"No," said Brooke, drily, "that's the one thing you can't do."
He flung himself down in his straw-filled bunk, dressed as he was, for he had floundered through tangled forest since the dawn crept into the sky; and the shadows of the cedars lay long and black upon the river when he opened his eyes again. Jimmy was busy at the little stove, and in another few minutes the simple meal, crudely served but barbaric in its profusion, was upon the table. Neither of the men said very much during it, and then Jimmy silently helped his comrade to gird his packs about him. The sun had gone, and the valley was dim and very still when they stood in the doorway.
"Good luck!" said Jimmy. "You'll come back by-and-by?"
Brooke smiled curiously as he shook hands with him. "If I'm ever a rich man, I may."
Then he went out into the deepening shadows, and floundering waist-deep through the ford, plodded up the climbing trail with his face towards the snow. It grew a trifle grim, however, when he looked back once from a bare hill shoulder, and saw a feeble light blink out far down in the hollow. Jimmy, he knew, was lying, pipe in hand, beside the stove, and, after all, the lonely ranch had been a home to him.
A man without ambition who could stifle memory might have found the life he led there a pleasant one. Bountiful Nature fed him, the hills that walled the valley in shut out strife and care, and now he was homeless altogether. He had also just six dollars in his pockets, and that sum, he knew, will not go a very long way in Western Canada.
As he gazed, the fleecy mist that rolled up from the river blotted out the light, and the man felt the deep stillness and loneliness as he had not done since he first came there. That sudden eclipse of Jimmy's light seemed very significant just then, for he knew it would never burn again as a beacon for him. The last red gleam had also faded off the snow, and, with a jerk at the pack straps that galled his shoulders, he set his lips, and swung away into the darkness of the coming night.
III.
THE NARROW WAY
The big engine was running slowly, which did not happen often, and Brooke, who leaned on the planer table, was thankful for the respite. A belt slid round above him, and on either side were turning wheels, while he had in front of him a long vista of sliding logs, whirring saws, and toiling men. The air was heavy with gritty dust, and a sweet resinous smell, while here and there a blaze of sunshine streamed into the great open-sided building. Something had gone wrong with the big engine, and its sonorous panting, which reverberated across the still, blue inlet, had slackened a trifle. There was not, as a result of this, power enough to drive all the machines in the mill, and Brooke was waiting until the engineer should set matters right.
It was very hot in the big shed. In fact, the cedar shingles on the roof were crackling overhead; and Brooke's thin jean garments were soaked with perspiration. The dust the planer threw off had also worked its way through them, and adhered in smeary patches to his dripping face, while his hair and eyebrows might have been rubbed with flour. That fine powder was, however, not the worst, for he was also covered with prismatic grains of wood, whose sharp angles caused him an intolerable irritation when his garments rasped across his flesh. His hands were raw and bleeding, there was a cramp in one shoulder, and an ache, which now and then grew excruciating, down all the opposite side of him.
The toilers are, as a rule, at least, liberally paid in Western Canada, but a good deal is expected from them, and the manager of the mill had installed that planer because it could, the makers claimed, be run by one live man. The workmen, however, said that if he held to the contract he would very soon be dead, and Brooke was already worn out with the struggle to keep pace with steam. It was a long while since he had toiled much at the ranch, and in England he had not toiled at all, while, as he stood there, gasping, and hoping that the engineer would not get through his task too soon, he remembered that on the two eventful occasions in his life when he had made a commendable decision, it had brought him only trouble and strain. The way of the virtuous, it seemed, was hard.
He turned languidly when a man who carried an oil can came by and stopped a moment beside him.
"You're looking kind of played out," said the newcomer.
"It's not astonishing," said Brooke. "I feel quite that way."
"Then I guess that's a kind of pity. The boss will have the belt on the relief shaft in a minute now, and he allows he's going to cut every foot as much as usual by the supper hour. You'll have to shake yourself quite lively. How long've you been on to that planer?"
"A month."
"Well," said the engineer, "she broke the last man up in considerably less time than that. Weak in the chest he was, and when we were driving her lively he used to cough up blood. He had to let up sudden one day, and he's in the hospital now. Say, can't you strike somebody for a softer job?"
"I'm afraid I can't," said Brooke, drily. "I'll have to go on till I'm beaten."
The engineer made a little gesture of comprehension as he passed on, for the attitude the Englishman had adopted is not uncommon in the Dominion of Canada, or the country where toil is at least as arduous to the south of it. Men who demand, and not infrequently obtain, the full value of their labor, are proud of their manhood there, and there was an innate resoluteness in Brooke, which had never been wholly awakened in England.
Suddenly, however, the belt above him ran round; there was a clash as he slipped in the clutch, and a noisy whirring which sank to a deeper tone when he flung a rough redwood board upon the table. The whirring millers took hold of it, and its splintery edges galled his raw hands as he guided it, while thick dust and woody fragments torn off by the trenchant steel, whirled about him in a stream until his eyes were blinded and his nostrils filled. Then the board slid off the table smooth on one side, and he knew that he was lagging when the hum of the millers changed to a thin scream. They must not at any cost be kept waiting for their food, for by inexorable custom so many feet of dressed lumber every day was due from that machine.
He flung up another heavy piece, reckless of the splinters in his hand, made no pause to wipe the rust from his smarting eyes, and peering at the spinning cutters blindly thrust upon the end of the board, and wondered vaguely whether this was what man was made for, or how long flesh and blood could be expected to stand the strain. The board went off the table with a crash, and it was time for the next, while Brooke, who bent sideways with a distressful crick in his waist, once more faced the sawdust stream with lowered head. It ceased only for a second or two, while he stooped from the table to the lumber that slid by gravitation to his feet, and he knew that to let that stream overtake him and pile up would proclaim his incapacity and defeat. So long as he was there he must keep pace with it, whatever tax it laid upon his jaded body.
He did it for an hour, flagging all the while, for it was a task no man could have successfully undertaken unless he had done such work before, and Brooke's head was aching under a tension which had grown unendurable that afternoon. Then the screaming millers closed upon a knot in the wood, and, half-dazed as he was, he thrust upon the board savagely, instead of easing it. There was a crash, a big piece of steel flew across the table, and the hum of the machine ceased suddenly. Brooke laughed grimly, and sat down gasping. He had done his best, and now he was not altogether sorry that he was beaten.
He was still sitting there when a dusty man in store clothes, with a lean, intent face, came along and glanced at the planer before he looked at him.
"You let her get ahead of you, and tried to make up time by feeding her too hard?" he said.
"No," said Brooke. "Not exactly! She got hold of a knot."
"Same thing!" said the other man. "You've smashed her, anyway, and it will cost the company most of three hundred dollars before we get her running again. You don't expect me to keep you after that?"
Brooke smiled drily. "I'm not quite sure that I'd like to stay."
"Then we'll fix it so it will suit everybody. I'll give you your pay order up to now, and you'll be glad I ran you out by-and-by. There are no chances saw-milling unless you're owner, and it's quite likely somebody's got a better use for you."
Brooke understood this as a compliment, and took his order, after which he had a spirited altercation with the clerk, who desired him to wait for payment until it was six o'clock, which he would not do. Then he went back to his little cubicle, which, with its flimsy partitions one could hear his neighbor snoring through, resembled a cell in a hive of bees, in the big boarding-house, and slept heavily until he was awakened by the clangor of the half-past six supper bell. He descended, and, devouring his share of the meal in ten minutes, which is about the usual time in that country, strolled leisurely into the great general room, which had a big stove in the middle and a bar down one side of it. He already loathed the comfortless place, from the hideous oleographs on the bare wood walls down to the uncleanly sawdust on the floor.
He sat down, and two men, whose acquaintance he had made during his stay there, lounged across to him. Trade was slack in the province then, and both wore very threadbare jean. There was also a significant moodiness in their gaunt faces which suggested that they had felt the pinch of adversity.
"You let up before supper-time?" said one.
"I did," said Brooke, a trifle grimly. "I broke up the Kenawa planer in the Tomlinson mill. That's why I came away. I'm not going back again."
One of the men laughed softly. "Then it was only the square thing. Since we've been here that planer has broke up two or three men. Held out a month, didn't you? What were you at before that?"
"Road-making, firing at a cannery, surrey packing. I've a ranch that doesn't pay, you see?"
The other man smiled again. "So have we! Half the deadbeats in this country are landholders, too. Two men couldn't get away with many of the big trees on our lot in a lifetime, and one has to light out and earn something to put the winter through. This month Jake and I have made 'bout twenty dollars between us. I guess your trouble's want of capital – same as ours. One can't do a great deal with a hundred dollars. Still, you'd have had more than that when you came in?"
"I had," said Brooke, drily. "I put six thousand into the land, or rather the land-agent's bank, besides what I spent on clearing a little of it, and when I've paid my board and for the clothes I bought, I'll have about four dollars now."
"That's how those land-company folks get rich," said one of the men. "Was it a piece of snow mountain he sold you, or a bottomless swamp?"
"Rock. One might have drained a swamp."
The men smiled. "Well," said the first of them, "that's not always easy. A man's not a steam navvy – but the game's an old one. It was the Indian Spring folks played it off on you?"
"No. It was Devine."
There was a little silence, and then the men appeared reflective.
"Now, if any man in that business goes tolerably straight, it's Devine," said one of them. "Of course, if a green Britisher comes along bursting to hand over the bills for any kind of land, he'll oblige him, but I'd sit down and think a little before I called Devine a thief. Anyway, he's quite a big man in the province."
The bronze deepened a trifle in Brooke's face. "I can't see any particular difference between a swindler and a thief. In any case, the man robbed me, and if I live long enough I'll get even with him."
"That's going to be quite a big contract," said one of the men. "It's best to lie low and wait for another fool when you've been taken in. Besides, there's many a worse man in his own line than Devine. There was one fellow up at Jamieson's when the rush was on. He could talk the shoes off a mule – and he was an Englishman. Whatever any man wanted, fruit-land, mineral-land, sawing lumber, and gold outcrop, he'd got. Picked it out on the survey map and sold it him. For 'most a month he rolled the dollars in, and then the circus began. The folks who'd made the deals went up to see their land, and most of them found it belonged to another man. You see, if three of them wanted maple bush, that's generally good soil and light to clear, and he'd only one piece of it, he sold the same lot to all of them. They went back with clubs, but that man knew when to light out, and he didn't wait for them."
Brooke sat silent awhile. He knew that the story was not a very unlikely one, for while, in view of the simplicity of the Canadian land tenure legislation, there is no reason why any man should be swindled, as a matter of fact, a good many are. He was also irritated that he had allowed himself to indulge in what he realized must have appeared a puerile threat. This was, of course, of no moment in itself, but he felt that it showed how he was losing hold of the nice discretion he had, at least, affected in England. Still, he meant exactly what he had said.
During the greater portion of two years he had attempted a hopeless task, and then, discovering his folly, resigned himself, and drifted idly, perilously near the brink of the long declivity which Englishmen of good upbringing not infrequently descend with astonishing swiftness in that country, and for that, rightly or wrongly, he blamed the man who had robbed him. Then the awakening had come, and he saw that while there were many careers open to a man with six thousand dollars, or even half of them, there was only strenuous physical toil for the man with none. He had attempted it, but proficiency in even the more brutal forms of labor cannot be attained in a day, and he now looked back on a year of hardship and effort which had left an indelible mark on him.
It had been a season when there was little industrial enterprise, and he had no friends, while the dollars he gained were earned for the most part by the strain of overtaxed muscles and bleeding hands. He had toiled up to his waist in snow-water at the mines, swung the shovel under the lashing deluge driving a Government road over a big divide, hung from dizzy railroad trestles holding with fingers bruised by the hammer the spikes the craftsmen drove, and been taught all there is to learn about exposure and fatigue. He had braced himself to bear it, though he had lived softly in England, but each time he crawled into draughty tent or reeking shanty, wet through, with aching limbs, at night, he remembered the man who had robbed him.
It was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing that under such conditions the wrong done him should assume undue proportions, and that when a slipping hammer laid his knuckles bare he should charge the smart to Devine, and long for the reckoning. The man who had condemned him to this life of toil had, he told himself, grown rich by theft, and he dwelt upon his injury until the memory of it possessed him. It was not, however, the physical hardship that troubled him most, but the thought of the opportunities he had lost, for since he had seen the girl with the brown eyes they had assumed their due value. Devine had not only taken his dollars, but had driven him out from the society of those who had been his equals, and made him one who could scarcely hope to meet a woman of refinement on friendly terms again. Coarse fare and a life of brutal toil were all that seemed left to him. There were, he knew, men in that country who had commenced with a very few dollars, and acquired a competence, but they were not young Englishmen brought up as he had been.