A Damaged Reputation Part 20

"I really don't think you should," he said. "Your husband mightn't like it, and it is quite a long while ago, you know."

A little pink flush crept into the woman's cheek and she rose leisurely.

"Perhaps he will be wondering where I am, after all," she said. "You must come and make friends with him. We may be staying for some time yet at the C. P. R. Hotel, Vancouver."

Brooke went with her and spent some little time talking to her husband, who made a favorable impression upon him, while when he took his leave of them the woman let her hand remain in his a moment longer than there was any apparent necessity for.

"You must come down and see us--it really isn't very far, and we have so much to talk about," she said.

Brooke said nothing, but he felt that he had had a warning as he swung off his big shapeless hat and turned away.

XIV.

BROOKE HAS VISITORS.

The afternoon was hot, and the roar of the river in the depths below emphasized the drowsy stillness of the hillside and climbing bush, when Brooke stood on the little jutting crag above the canon. Two hundred feet above him rose a wall of fissured rock, but a gully, down which the white thread of a torrent frothed, split through that grim battlement, and already a winding strip of somewhat perilous pathway had been cut out of and pinned against the side of the chasm. Men with hammers and shovels were busy upon it, and the ringing of the drills broke sharply through the deep pulsations of the flood, while several more were cl.u.s.tered round the foot of an iron column, which rose from the verge of the crag, where the rock fell in one tremendous sweep to the dim green river.

Close beside it, and overhung by the rock wall, stood Brooke's double tent, for, absorbed as he had become in the struggle with the natural difficulties that must be faced and surmounted at every step, he lived by his work, and when he had risen that morning the sun had not touched the dim white ramparts beyond the climbing pines. He was just then, however, not watching his workmen, but looking up the gorge, and a little thrill of pleasure ran through him when two figures in light draperies appeared at the head of it. Then he went up at a pace which Jimmy, who grinned as he watched him, wondered at, and stopped a trifle breathless beside the two women who awaited him above.

"I was almost afraid you would not come," he said. "You are sure you would care to go down now you have done so?"

Mrs. Devine gazed down into the tremendous depths with something that suggested a shiver, but Barbara laughed. "Of course," she said. "Those men go up and down with big loads every day, don't they?"

"They have to, and that naturally makes a difference," said Brooke, with a little smile.

"Then we can go down because we wish to, which is, in the case of most people, even a better reason."

Mrs. Devine appeared a trifle uncertain, and her face expressed rather resignation than any special desire to make the descent, but she permitted Brooke to a.s.sist her down the zig-zag trail, while Barbara followed with light, fearless tread. Once they entered the gully, they could not, however, see the canon, which, in the elder lady's case, at least, made the climb considerably easier, and they reached the tent without misadventure. The door was triced up to form an outer shelter, and Barbara was a trifle astonished when Brooke signed them to enter.

She had seen how he lived at the ranch, and the squalid discomfort of the log room had not been without its significance to her, but there was a difference now. Nothing stood out of place in that part.i.tion of the big double tent, and from the spruce twigs which lay a soft, springy carpet, on the floor, to the little nickelled clock above her head, all she saw betokened taste and order. Even the neat folding chairs and table shone spotlessly, and there was no chip or flaw upon the crockery laid out upon the latter. There had, it seemed, been a change, of which all this was but the outward sign, in the man who stood smiling beside her.

"Tea at four o'clock is another English custom you may have become addicted to, and you have had a climb," he said. "Still, I'm afraid I can't guarantee it. Jimmy does the cooking."

Jimmy, as it happened, came in with a teapot in his hand just then.

"Well," he said, "I guess I'm considerably smarter at it than my boss.

You needn't be bashful, either. I've a kettle that holds most of a gallon outside there on the fire, and here's two big tins of fixings we sent for to Vancouver."

Mrs. Devine smiled, but Brooke's face was a trifle grim, as he glanced at his retainer, and Barbara did not look at either of them just then.

It was, of course, after all, only a little thing, but she was, nevertheless, gratified that he could think of these trifles in the midst of his activities. She, however, took the white metal teapot, which was burnished brilliantly, from Jimmy, who, in spite of Brooke's warning glances, still hung about the tent, contemplating her with evident approbation as she pa.s.sed the cups.

"I guess she does it considerably smarter than Tom Gordon's Bella would have done," he said, with a wicked grin. "Bella had no use for teapots either. She'd have given it you out of the kettle."

The glance Brooke rewarded him with was almost venomous, for he had seen the swift inquiry which had flashed into them fade as suddenly out of Barbara's eyes. She could not well admit the least desire to know who Tom Gordon's Bella was, though she would not have been unwilling to be enlightened. Jimmy, however, beamed upon Mrs. Devine, who had taken up her cup.

"I hope you like it. No smoke on that," he said. "When you use the green tea a smack of the resin goes well as flavoring, especially if it's brewed in a coal-oil tin. Now, there's tea they make right where they sell it in Vancouver, but what you've got is different I guess it's grown in China, or it ought to be, for the boss he sent me down, and says he----"

"Isn't it about time you made a start at getting that boulder out?" said Brooke, drily.

Jimmy retired unwillingly, and Brooke glanced deprecatingly at his guests. "We have been comrades for several years," he said.

"Of course!" said Mrs. Devine, with a little smile. "Still, I really don't think you need be so anxious to hide the fact that you have taken some pains to provide these little dainties for us. It would have been apparent in any case. We know how men live in the bush."

Brooke made no disclaimer, though a faint trace of color deepened the bronze in his face, for he remembered the six thousand dollars, and winced under her graciousness. Then they discussed other matters, until at last Barbara laid aside her cup.

"We came to see the canon, and how you mean to put the rope across," she said.

She glanced at her sister, but Mrs. Devine resolutely shook her head. "I have seen quite as much of the canon as I have any wish to do," she said. "Besides, it was not exactly an easy matter getting down here, and I expect it will be considerably worse getting up. You can go with Mr.

Brooke, my dear."

They left her in the tent, and five minutes later Brooke led the girl to a seat on a dizzy ledge, from which the rock fell away in one awful smooth wall.

"Now," he said quietly, "you can look about you."

Barbara, who had been too occupied in picking her way to notice very much as yet, drew in her breath as she gazed down into the tremendous chasm. The sunshine lay warm upon the pine-clad slopes above, but no ray of brightness streamed down into that depth of shadow, and its eerie dimness was thickened by the mist which drifted filmily above the river's turmoil. Out of it a deep vibratory roar came up, diminished by the distance, in long pulsations that died far up among the pines in sinking waves of sound.

"Oh," she said, with a little gasp, "it's tremendous!"

"A trifle overwhelming!" said Brooke, reflectively, "and yet it gets hold of one. There is a difference between it and the English valley you once mentioned."

Barbara turned to him, with a little gleam in her eyes.

"Of course!" she said. "One is glad there is, since it is typical of both countries. You couldn't tame this river and set it gliding smoothly between mossy stepping-stones."

"No," said Brooke, "I scarcely think one would wish to if he could. One feels it wouldn't be fitting."

"And yet we shall put the power that's in it into harness by and by."

"Without taming it?"

Barbara nodded. "Yes," she said. "If you had ever stood in a Canadian power house, as I have done once or twice, you would understand. You can hear the big dynamos humming in one low, deep note while the little blue sparks flicker about the shafts. They stand for controlled energy; but the whole place rocks with the whirring of the turbines and the thunder of the water plunging down the shoots. The river that drives them does it exulting in its strength. You couldn't fancy it lapping among the lily leaves in sunlit pools. It hasn't time."

"To have no time for artistic effect is typical of this country, then?"

said Brooke.

Barbara smiled. "Yes," she said, "I really think it is. We shall come to that later, but this, you see, isn't art, but something greater. It's nature untrammelled, and primeval force."

"Then you, who personify reposefulness, admire force?"

Barbara held her hand up. "When it accomplishes anything I do; but listen," she said. "That sound isn't the discord of purposeless haste.

There's a rhythm in it. It's ordered and stately harmony."

Brooke sat still, watching the little gleam in her brown eyes, until she turned again to him.

"You are going to put that rope across?" she said.